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PUBL.IC LIBRARY

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GENEALOGY DEPARTMENT

BASEMENT

WlWrN.fiQMMY PUBLIC LIBRARY

3 1833 01746 6704

GENEALOGY
1902-1903

Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2012

http://archive.org/details/newenglandmagaziv27bost

New England Magazine

An Illustrated Monthly

New Series, Vol. 27

£°M

eptember, 1902

February, 1903

Boston, Mass.

America Company, Publishers

5 Park Square

Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1902, by

AMERICA COMPANY
in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

INDEX

THE NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

VOLUME XXVII.

SEPTEMBER, 1902— FEBRUARY, 1903

Abolitionists, Reminiscences of Two

Acton, Massachusetts

Alexandria, Virginia

Almanacs, A Bundle of Old ..."

American Colony, The First . .

Art of Letter Writing, The

Birthplace of the American Free Public School,
The

Boston Market Man, With a

Boston's Playground System .

Brattle Organ, The .

Brooks Tavern, The Tale of

Bundle of Old Almanacs, A

Charity Case, A. A Story ........

Child's Taste in Fiction, The .......

China, A New Englander in

Christmas Tangle, A. A Story .

Church and State in New England

City of Hartford, The

Closed Account, A. A Story

Colonial Parson, The. Taken from Alice Morse
Earle's "The Sabbath in Puritan New
land," by

Colony, The First American

Cranford, A New England

Danvers, Massachusetts

Dave Dalton's Lady. A Story . ...

Davis's, Charles H., Landscapes ...

Dedham, Massachusetts .......

Door-step of New England, The . . .

Editors in the South, New England . .

Experiment in Forestry, An . . . . .

Findlater, Jane and Mary, Sister Novelists

First Organ in America, The

Forestry, An Experiment in

Forestry, The New Profession of . . .

Foster, Abby and Stephen, Abolitionists .

Lillie B. Chace Wyman .... 536

Frederick Brooks Noyes .... 331

Alexander Cameron 259

Elizabeth Cumings 49

P. T. McGrath 617

Zitella Cocke 410

N. L. Sheldon . . 509

Joseph Nelson Pardee ..... 450

Joseph Lee ........ 521

Arthur W. Brayley ....... 212

Frederick Brooks Noyes . . . . 33:

Elizabeth Cumings ...... 49

Julia Truitt Bishop 673

Florence Hull Winterburn . . . 325

Fred A. Gannon . . . . . . . 634

Harriet A. Nash 403

Augustus F. Moult on 96

William DeLoss Love .... 649

Helen B. Smith . 31

Eng-

Homer J. Webster .
P. T. McGrath . .
Elsie Carmichael
Frank E. Moynahan
Virna Sheard . . .
William Howe Downes
N. L. Sheldon . . .
Joseph Kennard Wilson
George Frederick Mellen
Max Bennett Thrasher
Nora Archibald Smith
Arthur W. Brayley
Max Bennett Thrasher
George Ethelbert Walsh
Lillie B. Chace Wyman

167
617
606
220
470
422
509
3
679

44
186
212

44
284

536

INDEX

Founding of a Faith, The Edward Gilman Mason .... 464

Franklin, The Lost State of Will M. Clemens ...... 772

Gastronomic Tragedy, A. A Story 1 emple Bailey ....... 344

Hartford, Connecticut William DeLoss Love 649

Historic Mansion, An . . . Ella Matthews Bangs 695

Hopedale and Milford, Massachusetts Lewis G. Wilson 487

Hopkinson, Francis, Man of Affairs and Letters . Annie Russell Marble 289

House of Four Chimneys Garret Van Arkel 59

Housekeeper's Story, The. A Story E. K. Marble 714

How John Eastlake was Cured. A Story . . . A. L. Sykes 417

How New Haven came to be in Connecticut . . Ernest H. Baldwin 379

Indian Money in the New England Colonies . . Frederick Austin Ogg 749

Interlude, An Fannie E. Barnes 313

Irrigation, The Miracle of Day Allen Willey 586

Island Miller, The. A Story Harriet A. Nash 636

Law of Contrast, The Esther Kingsmill-M organ . . . 113

Legendary Play of Rothenburg, The Charlton L. Edholm 303

Letter Writing, The Art of ........ Zitella Cocke 410

Lowell's Influence in England Herbert W. Horwill 321

Lost State of Franklin, The Will M. Clemens 772

Massachusetts Institute of Technology .... James Phinney Munroe .... 131

Mazzei, Filippo Helen Zimmern 198

Milford and Hopedale, Massachusetts Lewis G. Wilson 487

Miller, Hugh, and His Centenary John M. Clarke 551

Mills of God, The. A Story Charles Stuart Pratt 117

Miracle of Irrigation, The Day Allen Willey 586

New Englander in China, A Fred A. Gannon 634

New England, Church and State in Augustus F. Moult on 96

New England Colonies, Indian Money in the . . Frederick Austin Ogg 749

New England Cranford, A Elsie Carmichael 606

New England, The Door-step of Joseph Kennard Wilson .... 3

New England Editors in the South George Frederick Mellen .... 679

New England Pine Trees . Annie 0. Huntington 177

New England, A Scion of Edward 0. Grisbrook 477

Newfoundland, The First American Colony . . P. T, McGrath 617

New Haven, How it came to be in Connecticut . Ernest H. Baldwin 379

New Profession of Forestry, The George Ethelbert Walsh .... 284

Organ, The First in America Arthur W. Brayley 212

Phillips, Wendell, Reminiscences of Lillie B. Chace Wyman .... 725

Pine Trees of New England Annie 0. Huntington 177

Playground System of Boston Joseph Lee 521

Plymouth, Massachusetts Ethel Hobart 250

Polly Stevens's Calf's Skin. A Story Mary McHenry 192

Popham, Maine Joseph Kennard Wilson .... 3

Pratt, Bela L., Sculptor William Howe Downes .... 760

Price of an Angel, The. A Story Ella Middle ton Tybout . . . . 160

Public School, The Birthplace of the American

Free m. L. Sheldon 509

Puritan Maid, A. A Story Emilia Elliott 741

Railway, The Underground Wilbur H. Siebert 564

Reminiscences of Two Abolitionists Lillie B. Chace Wyman .... 536

Reminiscences of Wendell Phillips Lillie B. Chace Wyman .... 725

Rothenburg, The Legendary Play of Charlton L. Edholm 303

Schools and Colleges in Colonial Times .... Homer /. Webster 372

INDEX

Scion of New England, A Edward 0. Grisbrook 477

Ship that Saw a Ghost, The. A Story .... Frank Norris 439

Sigourney, Lydia Huntley Grace Lathrop Collin 15

Southborough, Massachusetts Martha E. D. White 67

Story of Mazzei Helen Zimmern 198

Story of the Sea, A L. M. Sawyer 317

Suffolk Resolves, The M. P. Webster 353

Sweet Peas. A Story Erma Eloise Cole 90

Tale of Brooks Tavern Frederick Brooks Noyes .... 331

Technology, Massachusetts Institute of ... . James Phinney Munroe . . . . 131
Tis an 111 Strike that does Nobody Good. A

Story George Bloodgood 601

Titian's Country Margaret Waldo Higginson . . . 39 t

Tourist and Native Ethel Hobart 250

Treasure of Far Island, The. A Story .... Willa Sibert Cather 234

Trees of New England, Pine Annie 0. Huntington 177

Underground Railway, The Wilbur H. Siebert 564

Universalism in America Edward Gilman Mason .... 464

Wadsworth-Longfellow Mansion, The .... Ella Matthezvs Bangs 695

Waiting of Helen Horton, The. A Story . . . Mabel A. Russell 349

Ward, Gen. Frederick Townsend Fred A. Gannon 634

Washington and the Town he loved so well . . Alexander Cameron ..... 259

Wenina. A Story Lucy M. Sawyer 37

Winter Wooing, A. A Story Phoebe Willey Bensel 579

"Witch's Curse, The." A Story James 0. Whittemore 111

With a Boston Market Man ........ Joseph Nelson Pardee 450

Ye Pumpion Pye. A Story . . Adele E. Thompson 277

POETRY

Autumn Ellen Frances Baldwin .... 219

Endeavor Lanta Wilson Smith 14

Fall of Rome, The :■'.'. Arthur Chamberlain 67S

Garret, The , . . . . Edwin L. Sabin 88

Goethe ■ Alice Crossette Hall 159

Imagination Charlotte Becker 312

In Extremis Charlotte Becker 463

Lullaby A. B. de Mille 343

Mother Love .Edwin Carlile Litsey 724

My Little Lass Elvira Sydnor Miller 585

New Year's Eve in the Woodlands ...... Alice D}Alcho 646

Night's Awakening . . H. Percival Allen 508

Parting Charles Hanson Towne .... 633

Prayer, A . . . Marco Fuller 438

Song of Love, A Virna Sheard 176

Starved Love Theodosia Garrison 66

Stream, The Ormsby A. Court 38S

Survival Charlotte Becker 249

"Sweet Memory's Palace of Renewed Delight" . Mary Lord 578

Teaching of Tears, The Marion Hill 693

To a Singer Edwin E. Stillman 694

X$>ia Muntle^ Sigourne^

She svnc, alone, e'er womanhood had KNow>f
The gift of song, which fills the air today.
Tender and sweet, a music all her own.
May fitly linger where she knelt to fray."

New England Magazine

New Series

SEPTEMBER, 1902

VOL. XXVII NO. 1

The Door-Step of New England

By Joseph Kennard Wilson

LYMOUTH ROCK, of
course." Certainly not.
The historic rock under
the canopy at the foot of
Cole's Hill shall be the corner stone if
you please ; and all honor to it. But it
was discovered a little too late to play
the part of a door-step. Thirteen years
before the light foot of Mary Chilton
touched its rugged surface, a broad
ledge one hundred and fifty miles and
more to the eastward had echoed the
tread of the feet of the first settlers of
New England. That the settlement
there and then made was not perma-
nent, abates no jot nor tittle of the
claim. The stone which has lain at the
door has a right to its name of "door-
step," even after its function of wel-
coming the coming and speeding the
parting guest has ceased, and the

house itself has been deserted and dis-
mantled. By this test, when we look
for New England's door-step, the place
where first stood the forerunners of
the race which has dominated this west-
ern world, we must turn to the Maine,
and not the Massachusetts coast, and
find it not at Plymouth, but at Popham.

It is a story unknown to many, and
forgotten by other many. It is told in
a few sentences in some of our his-
tories, and quite overlooked in others.
It is of no great and lasting import-
ance— like the Jamestown story, or the
Plymouth story; yet as a veritable bit
of the history of colonization in New
England, it is of exceeding interest,
and ought not to be allowed to perish
from national remembrance.

At the islanded mouth of that great
waterway of Maine which George

Thunderous Surf breaking upon the Shore "

Weymouth in 1605 called "the most
excellent and beneficyall river of
Sachedahoc," but which we more pro-
saically call the Kennebec, we find the
site of this original settlement. Nature
has been very lavish in her gifts to the
chosen spot, scattering charms in such
profusion and variety as to constitute
it, as it has been termed, "a unique cor-
ner of the earth" — one of the most de-
lightful bits of the everywhere delight-
ful Maine coast-line. Here are tall
pines, singing* somniferous songs un-
der the breath of tfie western breezes;
and wind-strewn sand dunes; and
great gray rock ledges ; and quiet
reaches of a sheltered bay; and miles
of broad, hard beaches; and thunder-
ous surf breaking upon the shore ; and,
as final gift, almost whimsical in the
incongruity of its position and rela-
tions, a beautiful fresh water lake forty
feet above the level of the sea, and only
a few hundred feet from it. It is
small wonder that they who have once
4

seen this favored spot remember it
with delight, and return to it with alac-
rity. ;^
Here lies the little village of Pop-
ham Beach; for nine months in the
year a quiet hamlet of a score or more
of families, but from June to Septem-
ber the home of a flourishing summer
colony, which fills up its two or three
hotels and its quarter of a hundred un-

pretentious but pleasant cottages. The
people of the village are of the original

A Fresh Water Lake Forty Feet Above the Level of the Sea, and only a few

Hundred Feet from it

Maine stock, and exemplify most of
'the characteristics usually assumed in
the name "Yankee." Among these
are a sturdy independence, temper-
ance, and a thrift which, if it does not
make them rich, at least keeps them
from abject poverty. Said an old-
time resident to the writer, "I don't
know a Popham man who is what you
would call a drinking man." And
almost in the same breath he continued,
as though in sequence to his former
statement, "Popham has never sent a
pauper to the town farm." Family
names are few, for the inhabitants have
frequently intermarried. Address
the next man you meet as "Oliver."
(Better prefix "Captain," for many of
these quiet-mannered men have made,
their voyages in "deep water," and
have handled their crews of men.) If
he doesn't respond to "Oliver," try
"Spinney." If that doesn't strike
him right, give him another chance,

with "Perkins." If that doesn't touch
him, it is safe to ask him where he
came from, and how long he is going
to stay, for it's long odds that he is a
stranger in town.

The point of contact of this secluded
village with the busy world is the ship-
building city of Bath, thirteen miles
away on the river. During the winter
the only means of communication is a
daily "stage," which illustrates in itself
a curious law of evolution. Starting
from Popham Beach in the early morn-
ing as a "top buggy," with one seat,
under which the mail bag is tucked
away, it arrives in Bath as a properly
constituted stage or mail wagon, with
two or three seats, and with its name
and destination painted on its side, and
drawn by two horses. On the return
trip the law works in the inverse order,
and that which leaves the city as stage,
crawls into the little seaside hamlet in
the gloaming as plain, one-horse

THE DOOR-STEP OF NEW ENGLAND

buggy. The effect is atmospheric, no
doubt; the sea air contracts, while the
breezes of the inland tend to expansion.
Whether the law works automatically
in the case of the traveller, fitting him
without volition of his own to his
changing environment, or whether each
step of the development means abrupt,
and possibly grumbling, change on
his part from one vehicle to another, it
is not the purpose of this paper to dis-
close. It must be allowed to science
to have some secrets.

But in the summer Popham Beach is
almost metropolitan, so many and so
easy are its means of communication
with "the regions beyond." For, not
only does its all-the-year-round stage
still pursue its devious way, but the
great boats of the Kennebec Line poke
their noses in at its wharf twice each
day, on their way to and from Boston,
while a saucy little craft with a some-
what profane pro-syllable, — the "Dam-
arin" — makes two trips daily to Bath.
It is one of the most delightful of all
river trips, that between the two places.
The Kennebec has been called a "mel-
ancholy" river. Perhaps "stately" or
"dignified," would describe it more ex-
actly. It is not a river to take lib-
erties with ; not one of your mouthy,
frothy, frolicsome streams, continually
tumbling over itself and laughing at its
own clumsiness. It is sober and se-
date ; it takes itself seriously, as one of
the great waterways of a great State :
it attends strictly to business, and rolls
its floods along in the most matter-of-
fact and business-like way imaginable.
Up and down it go all manner of craft.
Here is a fleet of ice-laden schooners,
drawn by a puffing tug, carrying a bit
of Maine's winter breath for the cool-
ing of sultry New York or Philadel-

phia, or a string of coal barges bound
in with materials for tempering that
self-same winter's breath. Now there
rushes by you the elegant yacht of the
millionaire, just crossing the bows of
the dingy-sailed catboat of a local fish-
erman. Perhaps you may be so for-
tunate as to meet the latest-built tor-
pedo boat, fresh from the Bath ship-
yards, out for a trial spin ; or one of the

The Torpedo Boat "Biddle" making thirty
miles an hour

only two six-masted schooners in the
world — the "Eleanor A. Percy" or the
"George W. Wells" — stretching out its
great length like leviathan of old. It
is a constantly changing panorama of
charming views. And you will enjoy
it all the more if you are lucky enough
to get an invitation into the pilot house
of the "Damarin," and to have Captain
Perkins for a cicerone and interpreter.
"Captain Jimmie," as almost every one
hereabouts calls him, has sailed these
waters from boyhood, and what he

j<- '''iff^Mwiijywflwwiiiiiwji.ii.fcii -

The Eleanor A. Percy

doesn't know about the river, with
what is in it, or on it, or under it,
would make, if written out, a remark-
ably small volume.

Two institutions at Popham serve to
keep the general Government con-
stantly in mind — the fort and the Life
Saving Service station. Since 1812 an
old brick fort, scarcely more than a
shelter for riflemen, has stood on the
point of land near the site of the an-
cient Fort St. George. In 1861 the
Government began the erection here of
a granite fortification, to which the
name of Fort Popham was given, in
honor of the president of the original
colony. The work was never com-
pleted— probably never will be. The
structure belongs to a bygone age of
warfare. A single shot from the "Ore-
gon's" thirteen-inch guns would shiver
its walls like window glass. It would
be folly to spend good money in fin-

ishing that which can never be of prac-
tical use. In the meantime it is a dis-
tinct addition to the attractions of the
place, lending picturesqueness and dig-
nity with its frowning walls and threat-
ening guns. Formerly its grounds were
open to visitors ; but according to the
later regulations regarding Govern-
ment Reservations, its gates are now
kept closed and locked ; possibly to
keep the guns from "going off," as a
speculative summer boarder has re-
marked. The fort is garrisoned ; but
when one sees that garrison on parade,
he is reminded of "Sam." "Sam,"
queried an interested friend ; "Sam,
where are your father and mother?"
"Ain't got none, boss," was the answer.
"No fader, no mudder, only jist Sam.
When yo' shakes Sam, yo' shakes all
dar is ob us." If any one were brave
enough to "shake" Sergeant Richard-
son, he would thereby cause the whole

THE DOOR-STEP OF NEW ENGLAND

United States force at Fort Popham to
tremble; for all alone, and by the un-
aided might of his own right arm, the
Sergeant "holds the fort" by the waters
of the blue Kennebec.

The other Government institution is
the ITunnewell's Beach station of the

United States Life Saving Service, es-
tablished in 1883. It belongs to the
First District, which covers all of
Maine, and most of the New Hamp-
shire coast ; fourteen stations in all, ten
of which are in Maine, between "Kit-
tery Point and Ouoddy Head." The
service extends through eleven months
in each year, beginning at midnight,
July 31, and ending at midnight, June
30, the following year. It is taken for
granted that self-respecting masters of
vessels will observe these dates, and
will not allow their ships to be wrecked
or to come to grief in these waters dur-
ing the unguarded month of July.
[ cle Sam is not rich enough to pro-
tect his coasts all the year 'round, and
must take some chances. To him who
sees the Popham shores only in the
summer time, it seems almost ridicu-
lous to think of planting a station and
here. Bui these waters are capable

of kicking up quite "a bobbery," when
the east winds are let loose in the win-
ter. There are rocks with sharp teeth,
and cunningly concealed shoals here-
abouts, and the position of the life sav-
ers is not. the sinecure that it might ap-
pear. They were called out ten times
last year? in two instances taking the
crews from vessels hopelessly wrecked.
This is perhaps a fair average of their
yearly work since the establishment of
the station. The crew are men "born
and raised" in this neighborhood, and
are fine specimens of the native Maine
coast-wise dweller — half sailor and
half landsman, and equally at home on
land or sea. Captain Zenas H. Spinney
has been in service here for seventeen
years ; six as surfman, and eleven as
station keeper.

But the scenic and social interest of
this charming little village will ever, in
the thoughtful mind, be subordinated
to the historic interest. On Popham
sands one is walking with the his-
toric past. From time immemorial
this peninsula, called Sabino, or Se-
benoa, from the name of the In-
dian prince claiming lordship in this
region, was a favorite resort of the red
men, numerous relics of whom have
been found here, in the shape of arrow
and spear heads, stone utensils, earthen
pottery, etc. It is claimed also with
apparent reason that the Norsemen
landed here eight centuries ago. But
we are chiefly concerned with the fact
that this point of land is preeminentl\
the place of "first things" in the colo-
nization of New England. The first
settlement on the shores of the new
world north of the James river; the
first religious service on the mainland ;
the first town meeting; the first fort;
the first ship built on this continent ; the

W^^ Wm

Fort Popham

first English grave in the soil of Amer-
ica,— all these are in Popham's claim to
primacy, and are established by the evi-
dence in the case. It is quite beyond
reasonable doubt that here "thirteen
years before the landing at Plymouth,
a fair town of fifty houses, protected by
an intrenched twelve-gun fort, with a
church and a stated minister, enlivened
with the hum and clatter of busy arti-
sans in a shipyard, had planted the civ-
ilization, commerce, and Christianity
of Europe on the shores of the
'Ancient Dominions of Maine.' ''

The story goes back to 1607, when
George Popham and Raleigh Gilbert
arrived off the mouth of the Sagada-
hoc, or Kennebec, in two vessels, with
a company of "100 landmen," or more,
to establish a plantation in these west-
ern wilds. The colonization fever was
then running high in England, and
King James I. had just granted (April,
1606) charters to two companies, di-

viding between them that portion of
the new world lying between the thirty-
fourth and the forty-fifth parallels of
latitude — the parallels of Cape Fear,
North Carolina, and Passamaquoddy
Bay, Maine. By the terms of these
charters, the first, or London Company,
was to undertake the settlement of the
southern portion of Virginia, as the
whole land was then called; and the
second, or Plymouth Company, was to
confine its operations to the northern
section. The London Company was
apparently more energetic than its
competitor, and in December, 1606,
sent out three vessels with about one
hundred persons. These reached their
destination in safety, and May 13,
1607, landed upon the banks of the
James river, and began to lay the foun-
dations of Jamestown.

Five months after the sailing of this
party, the Plymouth Company de-
spatched an expedition to the territory

THE DOOR-STEP OF NEW ENGLAND

assigned to it. In the year 1875 a
manuscript journal of this expedition
was found in the library of the Lam-
beth Palace, England, which gives val-
uable and doubtless authentic informa-
tion concerning the voyage and the
planting of the colony. Its inscription
is as follows :

In the nam of God, Amen.
The Relation of a Voyage unto New Eng-
land.
Began from the Lizard, ye first of June, 1607

By Captn. Popham in ye ship ye Gift,
&
Captn. Gilbert in ye Mary & John:

Written by

& found amongst ye Papers of ye truly

WorDfull:

Sr. Fernando Gorges, Knt.

by me

William Griffith.

As is seen by the inscription, the
name of the writer is not given. Who-
ever he was, he seems to have had first-
hand sources of information, from
which fact it is supposed that he was an
officer on one of the ships ; while cer-
tain incidental references appear to
support the conjecture that he was
none other than James Davies, the cap-
tain of the "Mary and John."

The ship called in this inscription
"The Gift" is elsewhere given its full
name — "The Gift of God." It was a
"fly boat," flat bottomed and light of
draught, with stem and stern fashioned
almost alike ; somewhat after the model
of a Holland canal boat. The "Mary
and John" is supposed to have been the
larger of the two, but both were doubt-
less small and slow ; the day of ocean
liners and cup racers had not yet
dawned.

The leader of the expedition and
president of the colony, was George
Popham, a kinsman of Sir John Pop-
ham, the Lord Chief Justice of Eng-

land, and one of the principal pro-
moters of the enterprise. The second
in command was Raleigh Gilbert, son
of the intrepid navigator and explorer,
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and nephew of
the great Sir Walter Raleigh.

Sailing from Plymouth June 1, the
two ships reached the Maine coast in
August. The "Relation" says, "Thurs-
daye in the mornynge breacke of the
day beinge the xiijth of Auguste the
Illand of Sutquin (Seguin) bore north
of us nott past half f a leage from us the
whch Illand lyeth ryght beffore the
mouth of the ryver of Sagadehocke
South from ytt near 2 leags." Here
they encountered the weather which
has become proverbial in those parts,
and which has given the name of
"stormy Seguin" to this outer sentinel
of the Kennebec ; and it was not until
Sunday, August 16, that they were able
to enter the river. Anchoring near its
mouth, they spent the next two days in
exploring the region, and in deciding
upon a suitable place for the settlement.
The choice finally fell upon a spot "at
the very mouth or entry of the Ryver
of Sagadehocke on the West Syd of the
Ryver beinge almost an Illand of a
good bygness." Here they landed, on
Wednesday, August 19. When all
were on shore, religious services were
held according to the ancient Anglican
forms, and a sermon was "delyvred by
our preacher," the Reverend Richard
Seymour. Following this the colonists
were called together, and "our pattent
was red wth the orders and Lawes
thearin prescrybed, and then we re-
torned abord our Ships again."

Surely a memorable day's work ! The
first landing made, the first religious
service held, the first town meeting as-
sembled on New England soil.

"Stormy Seguin" the Outer Sentinel of the Kennebec

The immediate need of the infant
colony was, of course, the fortification
of the chosen site. On the very next
day after landing, therefore, the whole
company set to work at digging the in-
trenchments for what was afterwards
called Fort St. George, in honor of the
patron saint of England. Scarcely
less imperative was the need of a vessel
of some sort, with which to navigate
these waters after the two ships which
had brought them over should have re-
turned home. Without it, they would
have been practically prisoners on their
narrow peninsula. Accordingly work
was begun at once upon the building of
a small shallop, under the direction of a
shipwright of the company, "one Digby
of London" ; and presently there was
launched from the rude stocks "a
pretty Pynnace of about some thirty
tonne, which they called the Virginia"
— the first vessel of any description
built by white men in the western
world.

Judging from the "Relation," the life
of the colony was commonplace and
uneventful. Mention is made of no
great or striking events or experiences,
but of such matters as the labor on the
ship and the fortifications, exploration
of the surrounding regions by land and
water, fishing, and treating with the
"Sallvages," who seemed on the whole
friendly enough, but somewhat wary.
And there are days together when the
narration reminds one of the "F. W.
D." of the boy's diary, which meant,
being interpreted, "Forget what did."
As, e. g\, "The 16th 17th 18th 19th
20th 21th 22th nothinge happened but
all Labored harde about the fort & the
storehouse for to land our wyttails"
(victuals?). The last entry is made
under date of Sept. 26 and ends very
abruptly. It is supposed that a leaf
of the record is lost here ; and also that
early in October the "Mary and John"
returned to England, bearing with it
not merely the "Relation," for the pa-

Mouth of the Kennebec River

trons of the enterprise, for whose in-
formation it was doubtless written, but
also its author.

The remainder of the story of the
colony's life is given in Wm. Strach-
ey's "Historie of Travaile into Vir-
ginia Brittania," written about 1618.
It is a short story and soon told. The
building of the town progressed rap-
idly, so that before snow fell "they had
fully finished the fort, trencht and for-
tefied yt with 12 pieces of ordinaunce,
and built fifty howses thearin, besides
a church and a storehowse." Then
came a winter of unusual severity,
both in Europe and in America.
Strachey says that "the frost was so
vehement that noe boat could stir on
any business." Feb. 5, 1608, Presi-
dent Popham died, and was succeeded
in office by Raleigh Gilbert who had
been second in command from the be-
ginning. Perhaps matters were not
so satisfactory under his administra-
tion; perhaps the hearts of the colo-

had been eaten out of them by

the fierce cold ; perhaps they were not
of that stern stuff to which the diffi-
cult service of patient waiting is pos-
sible. At all events, when Captain
Davies returned the following sum-
mer with supplies, he found the colony
utterly demoralized. Letters which
he brought informed Gilbert of the
death of his brother, whose heir he
was, making necessary his return to
England; and the rest refused to re-
main longer upon this inhospitable
coast. Accordingly, in October, four-
teen months after the landing, "they
all ymbarqued in this new-arrived
shipp and in the new pynnace, the Vir-
ginia, and sett saile for England. And
this was the end of that northerne col-
ony uppon the river Sachadehoc."

But a single year's struggling life,
which seems to have left little trace, or
none, upon the subsequent colonization
of New England ; yet it deserves more
of a place in history than is usually
given it. If not of commanding im-
portance, it is at least of exceeding

THE DOOR-STEP OF NEW ENGLAND

interest to know the exact spot where
the foot of the Anglo-Saxon race first
rested upon the shores of that land
which it was ' 'afterward to receive for
an inheritance."

A little more than a generation ago
public attention was called to, and
public interest awakened in this his-
toric site and event by the announce-
ment of the Government's intention to
name its new fortification at the mouth
of the Kennebec, Fort Popham, after
the colony's first president. Taking
advantage of this quickened interest
the Maine Historical Society arranged
for the celebration of this first occu-
pancy of New England soil, at Fort
Popham, on August 29, (correspond-
ing to August 19, O. S.) 1862. The
plans were successfully carried out
and several thousand people assembled
near the site of the ancient Fort St.
George at the appointed time. The

exercises included religious service
conducted after the ancient Anglican
forms, historical papers and addresses,
and, of course, the inevitable banquet,
with its accompanying speeches. The
most significant part of the pro-
gramme that day, however, was the
part that was left uncompleted. A
massive block of granite, weighing
six tons, and measuring six feet in
length, by four in width, and three in
thickness, had been prepared, bearing
on its polished surface this inscription :

The First Colony

On the Shore of New England

was founded here

August 19th, O. S., 1607,

under

George Popham.

It was intended that this stone
should be placed above the arch of the
principal entrance of the fort, and the
records of the celebration speak of the
"flourish of music and thunder of can-

The Village of Popham Beach

ENDEAVOR

non" which greeted the proclamation
of the fact that it had been thus placed.
Yet the truth is that the laying of the
stone was ceremonial and not actual.
It was never put in the niche prepared
for it, but lies to-day, as it has lain for
forty years, on the ground behind one
of the buildings within the Govern-
ment Reservation, with its face turned
to the wall, like a picture rejected, or a
schoolboy in disgrace. Even its in-
scription is well-nigh hidden from
sight in its present position. "The best
laid schemes of mice and men" — and
governments and historical societies —
"gang aft a-gley." The neglected
memorial at Fort Popham is but an-
other illustration of the truth of the

familiar words. There is little reason
to expect that the original intention
will ever be carried out. The fort will
probably never be completed. And un-
less some historical society, or some
individual interested in the beginnings
of our national history, takes up the
matter, this stone of remembrance will
continue in its neglect, and this his-
toric site will remain unmarked. It
may be that a new crusade is needed
for the rescuing of this ancient spot
from oblivion, and the erection of a
suitable memorial. On Plymouth's
shore stands the magnificent statue of
"Faith." On Popham's sands might
fittingly be reared a column to com-
memorate, at least, "Attempt !"

Endeavor

By Lanta Wilson Smith

ABIT of landscape, rugged, rude, and wild;
Long, sloping hills, with granite boulders piled
A tangled woodland, deep and dark and lone;
A barren pasture filled with brush and stone.
In this rough setting lies a tiny space
Where patient toil has left heroic trace:
A fertile meadow, velvet-smooth and green,
Writes "brave endeavor" on the lonely scene.

Along life's pathway, rugged, steep, or bare,
What hands have toiled to make some portion fair.
What God-like patience has made glad the way,
And spread the living green 'mid walls of gray.
What hearts, to sacrifice and duty wed,
Have lived for others while the swift years sped.
With fadeless light their one grand purpose glows :
To make life's desert blossom like the rose.

Lydia Huntley Sigourney

By Grace Lathrop Collin

Illustrated from photographs made by special- permission of the Director of the Connecticut Historical
Society Rooms, Hartford, where the originals are.

SHE lived in the sweet old
days that have come down
to us steeped in the fra-
grance of lavender and box-
bordered garden beds, with the tra-
ditions of low, 'broad rooms, set
about with majestic mahogany fur-
niture, of customs more formal than
the stiffest of fiddle-back chairs, and
of manners unfailing in courtliness.
Then New York state was a recent-
ly settled region, and in New Eng-
land to travel on the Sabbath was
considered an offence.

In those days, "to be extant in the
evening was a condition of being
not contemplated for childhood,"
and the excellent Miss Hannaii
More cheered weary mothers with
the assurance, "I do not dislike ex-
treme vivacity in children." Upon
the request of condescending elders,
little girls with, shining ringlets, in
muslin gowns with ribbon sashes
passed over the left shoulder; or lit-
tle boys, in skeleton jackets and
ankle trousers, were accustomed to
recite "How doth the little busy
bee," or "Abroad in the meadows to
see the young lambs."

When the little girls became
young ladies, as they did in incred-
ibly early teens, they could sing,
perhaps accompanied by the guitar,

"The Distracted Lady," "Indulgent
Parents Dear," or "The Ghost of
Pompey to his Wife Cornelia" — bal-
lads acceptable for their delicacy of
sentiment. In the libraries of those
of refined mind, among the calf-
bound volumes of The Spectator or
the pamphlet sermons of the Rev.
Jonathan Edwards, were such
"pleasing and elegant" books as "The
Christian Keepsake," with heavily em-
bossed cover ; or perhaps in a series
of tiny volumes, "The Voice of Flow-
ers," with a tinted engraving frontis-
piece of a bouquet consisting of one
stocky pink rosebud, three blossoms
of eglantine and four violets, tied
with a blue ribbon, and with their
stems neatly trimmed apparently
with one snip of the scissors.

To-day our activities run in other
channels, our thoughts express
themselves in other phrases. To us
of the younger generation that pe-
riod has become history. On the
title-pages, already slightly yel-
lowed about the edges, of many a
soberly bound volume, there has
come down to us the name of one of
the personages and recorders of
that history, — Mrs. Lydia Huntley
Sigourney. And we, looking back
from the present to the past, may
perhaps be interested, or in the old

LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY

Mrs. Sigourney's Birthplace

style, "edified," in a study of the oc-
cupations, ambitions and the out-
look upon life, of this, one of the
first of our literary women.

Lydia Howard Huntley was born
in Norwich, Connecticut, on Sep-
tember i, 1 79 1. Her father, Eze-
kiel Huntley, iborn in the neighbor-
ing village of Franklin, was of
Scotch descent. He had served
throughout the Revolution in one
of the first regiments organized in
Connecticut. Her mother, Sophia
Wentworth, was of a family which,
though limited in pecuniary re-
sources, stretched its pedigree back
through the royal and Tory gov-
ernors of New Hampshire, to the
gifted Earl of Strafford, the hapless
friend of Charles I. At the time of
Lydia's birth, and for fourteen years
thereafter, the Huntleys' home was
beneath the roof of Mrs. Daniel
Lathrop, an aged widow, of whose
farm lands Mr. Huntley was appar-
ently general manager.

Lydia was an only child. From
her babyhood she seems to have
been a model little girl, one of those
docile-tempered children to whom
it either never occurs to be naughty
or who are endowed with a preco-
c'ous sense of moral responsibility.

The great pleasure of her simple,
frugal childhood seems to have been
in the companionship, not of other
children, .but of Mrs. Lathrop.
Upon her she lavished the wealth of
a childish admiration, and felt amply
repaid by Mrs. Lathrop's gentle en-
joyment of the. presence of this fair-
browed, well-behaved little girl. At
an astoundingly early age she
showed that she had a good mem-
ory and a receptive mind. In her
fourth year she was able to repeat
the whole of the "Assembly of the
Divines' Catechism" ; although, as
she comments mildly in her old age
("Letters of Life"), "From such an
elaborate body of divinity it could
be scarcely expected that much gain
would accrue to the understanding,
at so immature a period." When a
timid little thing of four years she
was sent to school, where she was
always obedient and diligent. Her
first teacher was a terrifying dame,
with heavy tread and immense black
silk calash. Next little Lydia at-
tended the district school, where in
spelling she went above the broad-
shouldered country boys. This was
followed by a school for needle-
work, conducted by a gentler in-
structress. Next an English lady
taught her in what were termed the
higher branches, including music,
painting and embroidery. Then
came an earnest-minded gentleman,
a graduate of Trinity College, Dub-
lin, a grave, silver-haired and eru-
dite son of Erin. After his tuition,
Lydia was raised to the dignity of
attending the brick schoolhouse, on
the green plain near the meeting-
house. This school Lydia left, that
she might be one of a select circle of

LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY

twenty-five, under the guidance of
a young gentleman, the secret of
whose sway was in his earnest piety
and consistent example. His suc-
cessor was "a religious character, a
ripe scholar," and of so "great
amenity of manners and disposition,"
that the " 'Exercises of Lindley Mur-
ray' he rendered especially delightful
in daily lessons." "What is strictly
called school education" then "found
a pause at the early age of thirteen."
Yet it is doubtless in all sincerity
and not altogether without reason
that a biographical dictionary of the
time states that Mrs. Sigourney en-
joyed especial educational advan-
tages. For, in her phraseology, "a
thorough course of History and
Mental Philosophy coalesced agree-
ably with household industry.". Also
at different times and with the stu-
dent temperament of which she was
undoubtedly the unaffected pos-
sessor, she studied Latin with a
venerable instructor, French with
an aged nobleman banished 'by the
Buonaparte dynasty, and Hebrew
with two clerical gentlemen. At
two boarding schools, furthermore,
she applied herself to the finger-
works accounted accomplishments
in those days.

The first grief of her life came to
her when fourteen, in the death of
Mrs. Daniel Lathrop, whose mem-
ory Mrs. Sigourney held in most
tender gratitude throughout her
life. Upon Mrs. Lathrop's death
the Huntleys moved to a neighbor-
ing house, where the tranquil rou-
tine was continued, — the spinning,
baking and brewing being occasion-
ally enlivened by sleighing parties,
dancing lessons and singing school.

Bust of Mrs. Sigourney

(Connecticut Historical Society Rooms)

It must have been when Lydia
was a girl of about sixteen that her
childish ambition of being a teacher
was realized. In "Letters to My Pu-
pils" she tells them that, "In the most
cherished and vivid pencillings of
fancy I was ever installed in the au-
thority and glory of a schoolmis-
tress, counselling, explaining, or
awarding premiums, always listened
to, regarded and obeyed." In a
schoolroom fitted up at home, she
taught, delightedly, two little girls.
In the succeeding year, with her be-
loved friend and comrade, Miss Ann
Maria Hyde, she left Norwich to at-
tend a finishing school in Hartford.
The next fall, reinforced by this
newly acquired knowledge, Miss
Huntley and Miss Hyde opened a

LYD1A HUNTLEY S1GOURNEY

school for young ladies on the Up-
town Plain in Norwich. This
proved so successful that the fol-
lowing year they transferred their
schoolroom to a building in the
business part of the town, — in Chel-
sea, near the Landing. Here, as one
of the pupils has written, were
passed dove-like days. The morn-
ings were devoted to the useful, the
afternoons to the ornamental
branches. "There was the super-
vision of fancy-work," Mrs. Sigour-
ney recalls, "the brilliant filigree
from its first inception ; the count-
less shades of embroidery; the
movements of pencil and paint-
brush, from the simplest flowers to
the landscape, the group and the
human face divine ; the nameless
varieties of wrought muslin ; and
also the elaborate construction of
fine linen shirts with their appen-
dant ruffles."

But as the severity of successive
winters was felt the school was
closed. Then, impelled by pure love
of teaching, Lydia Huntley formed
classes in the neighborhood of her
home, a favorite being of colored
children. These were discontinued,
at the suggestion of Mr. Daniel
Wadsworth of Hartford, the earliest
and most influential of her patrons,
who advised that she should come
to his larger and more closely set-
tled town. So in 1814, when she
was about twenty-three, Lydia
Huntley opened her Hartford
school. This was carried on with a
romantic enthusiasm for the next
five years. At the time of writing
"Letters of Life," in 1864, Mrs. Sig-
ourney mentions with quiet pride the
forty-fifth reunion of her pupils,

with their children, which had oc-
curred within the year. It is pleas-
ant, too, from so keen a critic as
President Dwight, to read these
words of commendation (The New
Englander, 1866), "She was, as we
think she fully proves herself by her
story, a valuable, inspiring, interest-
ing, self-sacrificing and loving in-
structor."

In 1819 she married a Hartford
merchant, Mr. Charles Sigourney,
a widower with three children, ail
under twelve. The location of the
Sigourney house was then regarded
as on the outskirts of the town, and
combined convenience with ele-
gance in a remarkable degree ; in its
lofty ceilings, marble mantelpieces,
folding-doors and windows reach-
ing to the floor Mrs. Sigourney
took an innocent delight. Now,
alas, the patrician aspect of its tall
columns and broad gable is quite
lost behind high bill-boards, and the
extensive lawn is cut by the tracks
of the steam railroad.

Eight years after her marriage a
daughter, Mary, was born ; and two
years later a son, Andrew. Soon
after this Mrs. Sigourney's father
and mother left the Norwich farm-
house to live with their daughter,
and to receive her care. Of her de-
votion to them we learn from others,
that she placed her parents in one
of the 'best apartments of her ele-
gant home, and that, while to out-
siders the aged couple seemed plain,
simple folk, she required the most
punctilious deference as their due
from all. About six years later Mrs.
Huntley died, aged sixty-three ;
soon after the two Misses Sigourney
married and left the home their

Oakland Place
The Sigourney House as it Appeared in 1840

(Connecticut Historical Society Rooms, Hartford)

stepmother had made for them ; and
a few years later her father died,
aged eighty-seven. Owing to busi-
ness troubles, after eighteen years'
residence in this house, the Sigour-
neys moved to a smaller one, nearer
the centre of the town, on High
Street, where they soon were com-
fortably settled. This house has since
been torn down.

In 1840, about two years after this
change, Mrs. Sigourney, urged by a
physician, made the grand tour of
her life, to Europe. Since her first
memorable journey, when a child of
fourteen, she had travelled by stage-
coach from Norwich to Hartford,
she had been for the most part, as
she expresses it, stationary. True,
she had visited Boston, New York
and Philadelphia, and had even got
as far south as Jamestown, .Virginia,
and had journeyed with friends to

Niagara and through the Valley of
the Wyoming, — wanderings duly
incorporated in "Pocahontas" (1841),
''Scenes in my Native Land" (1844),
"The Western Home" (1854), and
other books. But this was an absence
of nearly a year, "which gave time
and facility for exploration of the

The Sigourneys' Second House

LYD1A HUNTLEY S1GOURNEY

more interesting parts of England,
Scotland and France, — as recorded in
"Pleasant Memories of Pleasant
Lands" (1842). It is gratifying to
find that Mrs. Sigourney, to whom
the amenities of life meant so much,
was, by the consent of all, at home or
abroad, a conspicuous object of at-
tention and honor. In England she
visited the families of Wordsworth,
Joanna Baillie, the poet Rogers and
Miss Edgeworth. She was pre-
sented at Court. In France- she was
received with marked courtesies by
the La Fayette family and at the
Court of Louis Philippe. At her
departure the Queen of the French
gave her a diamond bracelet.

She returned to take up the quiet,
busy routine of her life, marked, like
every woman's, with so little that
can be told of to the world, and yet
with so much that is noble and pure,
and quite as essential to the world's
happiness as any of the more con-
spicuous works on which men pride
themselves'. In 1849 perhaps the
keenest grief of her life came to her
in the death, at the age of nineteen,
of her only son. Five years after
his death her hus'band died. The
death of her stepson, which followed
soon, rendered her yet more deso-
late ; and the marriage of her daugh-
ter left her quite alone.

Her remaining years, about ten in
number, she spent alone. Within
these she prepared at least six of her
fifty-six books ; and no one knows
how many of the two thousand and
more short articles which she found
time and inclination to write in a
life which, the pursuit of literature
entirely omitted, would seem suffi-
ciently full. Yet those who knew

her tell us that she was never hur-
ried or perturbed in manner. Hers
was ever a gracious presence,
whether in her vine-covered cot-
tage, dispensing simple, graceful
hospitality to guests, who still re-
member the little suppers, where
her bees furnished the honey and
her garden the flowers ; or perform-
ing the literary tasks which, al-
though it is difficult to conceive of
her as a business woman, contrib-
uted to her support during the lat-
ter part of her life.

Her literary career, she repeats
often, was a happy one. "I ought
to speak with more emphasis of the
encouragement kindlly addressed to
me since first, as a timid waif, I ven-
tured into regions then seldom trav-
ersed by the female foot." Letters
of appreciation reached her from the
King of Prussia, the Empress of
Russia and the Queen of France.
Her books were widely read both in
England and in the United States.
All New Englanders seem to have
been familiar with them, although it
was to the states of New York and
Pennsylvania that she was mainly
indebted for the remuneration of in-
tellectual toil. But the opinion of
her native town outweighed in her
judgment the dicta of all outlying
regions ; and it was always a grief
to Mrs. Sigourney that Norwich,
"beautiful Norwich, whose varied
scenery reveals sometimes the Cale-
donian wilderness, and at others the]
tender softness of the vale of
Tempe," kept silence, when "11
would fain have laid my honors at)
her feet." It is indeed to be regret-
ted that the tribute to so gentle ;
soul should not have come in he-

LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY

lifetime. To-day her bust stands in
one of the buildings of the academy,
at whose anniversary her song was
rejected, and an autograph letter is
carefully preserved. "I have no
other claim," she said, with wistful
humor, "to the title of prophet, save
the absence of honor in my own
country."

But it was not only through her
literary labors that Mrs. Sigourney
was known. Always a tithe at least
of her income was devoted to chari-
ties. In "Traits of the Aborigines of
America" (1822), a poem in blank
verse, of five cantos, the "Advertise-
ment" reads, "The avails of this
work are devoted exclusively to re-
ligious charities." Indeed, all her
books written, as they are, "with the
hope of disseminating some cheer-
ing thought or hallowed principle,"
might be regarded as among her
charities. Her whole life was one
of active and earnest philanthropy.
The poor, the sick, the deaf-mute,
the blind, the idiot, the slave and the
convict were objects of her con-
stant care and benefaction. During
her married life she economized in
her wardrobe and personal luxuries
that she might be able to relieve the
needy. A Hartford physician of the
time has said that he found Mrs.
Sigourney's cups and baskets in all
directions and oftener than from
any other hand. "What object of
benevolence is at present the most
interesting to you?" she writes to a
friend, serene in the conviction that
every woman is as charitably in-
clined as herself. Still another off-
shoot from the root of benevolence
was her habit of expressing appre-
ciation and good-will toward all who

approached her. Testimony is borne
that even as she w.as more demon-
strative than was the custom con-
cerning her affections, so was she
reticent concerning her dislikes.
As she quaintly phrases it in "The
Daily Counsellor" :

"Speak well of all; 'twill be a medicine
Unto thine own frail heart.

Think well of all:
Nor let thy friendship at the foibles start
That appertain to our humanity —
True Love hath in itself the principle
Of patience unto death."

She died on June 10, 1865, at the
age of seventy-four, loving and
loved by all in the town which had
been her home for more than fifty
years. The bell tolled for an hour
at sunset on the day of her death,
while multitudes thronged the
house, that they might look once
more upon her face.

"Such was her work," President
Dwight has said, "one that was so
faithfully and well accomplished,
that it deserves to be spoken of with
all honor by those who read her re-
corded history." "Few persons liv-
ing," Peter Parley says in his "Recol-
lections," "have exerted a wider in-
fluence than Mrs. Sigourney ; no one
that I now know can look back upon
a long and earnest career of such
unblemished beneficence."

Every work of her life is so di-
rectly inspired by what one of her
reviewers terms domestic piety, that
to separate what might be termed
literary works from those which fall
under other headings is an ungrate-
ful task. Also, for many of us, the
row of her books, on glass-screened,
mahogany-cased shelves, has hoard-
ed within their faded, dun-colored

LYD1A HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY

covers associations so tender that
the volumes seem of quite another
order than that submitted to lit-
erary criticism. There still clings
to them the atmosphere of gentle
dignity surrounding a teacher of the
old school ; so that for the second
generation following her pupils to
hold independent opinion concern-
ing these productions is little less
than an impertinence. There seems
an implied discourtesy in consider-
ing the work of such an authoress
in a purely impersonal manner. The
attitude of a contemporary com-
mentator, who suggests that to com-
pare her earlier with her later work
might not be indelicate, seems much
more decorous. So intimately, also,
is her literary work associated with
her personality, that criticism upon
the one might seem to involve the
other, as if in admitting Mrs.
Sigourney's diction artificial we
were finding fault with her house-
hold management. With many a
gentlewoman who has undertaken,
as Mrs. Sigourney phrases it, the
book business, this complete disasso-
ciation seems well-nigh impossible,
and yet the first obvious merit of
Mrs. Sigourney's books is that they
stand the test of being regarded as
contributions to literature. Taken
from their setting they still have in-
terest. Thus the highest tribute
which we can render her is to offer
a serious consideration of her work,
"with that frankness of criticism,"
to quote her words, "by which we
lady writers have too seldom an op-
portunity of profiting."

She lived and wrote in a signifi-
cant period of our literary history.
About ijGo there was an aestheticat

thaw. There had been no such word
as play in the dictionary of New Eng-
enders. They had worked hard on
their stony soil and read hard in
their stony books of doctrine. To
peruse works of the imagination
was considered an idle waste of
time, — indeed as partaking some-
what of the nature of sin. But the
growing taste of Connecticut was
no longer satisfied with Dr. Watts's
moral lyrics. Milton and Dryden,
Thomson and Pope, were read and
admired ; The Spectator was quoted
as the standard of style and of good
manners. In Mr. Stedman's "Ameri-
can Literature" we find that "It was
not until peace for a second time
(1812) became a habit, that the
imagination of the young people, as-
sured of nationality, slowly found
expression upon the printed page.
The earliest promise of an American
school may be said to begin with the
second quarter of the nineteenth
century." The first of Mrs. Sigour-
ney's books, "Moral Pieces in Prose
and Verse," was published in 1815,
or, as the advertisement reads, in the
thirty-ninth year of the Independence
of the United States of America.
Thus she was one of the charter
members, as it were, of this initial
literary association.

Its members worked with a vigor
that made up in enthusiasm what it
lacked in discrimination. To the
pursuit of letters the men seem to
have transferred all the energy they
would have used in ploughing a
stony hillside field ; the women all
the diligence with which they knit-
ted and sewed and baked. Notably
among them all, Mrs. Sigourney, in
the words of M. Vapereau's "Diction-

LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY

naire Universel des Contemporains,"
produisait avec une facilite peut-ctre ex-
nberante. That she wrote too much
is to obvious to need comment; but
that she was able to accomplish
such tremendous results may well
be a matter of wonder. Doubtless
it was due to her habit of industry,
hereditary and cultivated ; but much
more to the serenity of soul for
which she always strove, and which,
in so marvellous a measure, she
attained. Thus, among "Detached
Thoughts," in her earliest book, she
says, "If you yield to difficulties,
you encourage weakness of mind
and prepare yourself to be often
overcome and held in bondage. If
you were an inhabitant of Russia or
Lapland, would you say, T cannot go
out to my usual occupations because
the snow falls or the ice has covered
the streets?' . . . Disagreeable cir-
cumstances will meet us in the pas-
sage of human life, and we must be
prepared to sacrifice to them neither
our self-possession nor our inward
repose." And in "Letters to Young
Ladies," "Calmness and equanimitv
are excellent virtues in our sex . . .
in the routine of domestic life. Our
business is among trifles. • But . . .
suffer not the heart to be fixed on
trifles."

To her, as to her companion work-
ers, writing seemed merely a new
occupation closely akin both in
method and in kind to the other oc-
cupations which filled their days. In
The Muse she tells, —

"So, singing along, with a buoyant tread,
I drew out a line as I drew out a thread,"

and in a biographical chapter, "How
to obtain time to appease editorial

appetites and not neglect my house-
keeping tactics was a study. I
found the employment of knitting
congenial to the contemplation and
treatment of the slight themes
that were desired. This habit of
writing currente calamo is fatal to lit-
erary ambition. It prevents the la-
bor of thought by which intellectual
eminence is acquired. If there is
any kitchen in Parnassus, my Muse
has surely officiated there as a
woman of all work and an aproned
waiter." Yet to atone for this dis-
advantage, Mrs. Sigourney seems
to find ample compensation in the
words of one who embodied the
traits of nature and of feeling in a
vehicle of the most enchanting sim-
plicity, Miss Edgeworth. "Mrs. Sig-
ourney appears to have the power
of writing extempore on passing
events. . . . Addison could not. Gray
could not. Mrs. Sigourney's friends
will doubtless be ready to bear tes-
timony that she can. . . . Certainly
as regards poetic gifts, they who give
promptly give twice."

In the London Athenceum of 1839
is one of the most fair-minded and
appreciative of any of her contem-
porary notices : "The American
writers think too lightly of poetry.
Instinct and genius and spirit are
all very well. . . . Mrs. Sigourney
is not without spirit. She can be
eloquent at times. ... If she would
give us a page yearly instead of a
column, and take the time for writ-
ing it when she feels most in the
mood, she might do herself justice."
But fancy a person with Mrs.
Sigourney's traditions acting upon
this kindly advice and waiting for a
mood ! Or fancy how poorly the

24 LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY

one page as the result of a year's editors of "The National Portrait

work would figure in a record such Gallery" (1839), wherein her por-

as hers, now in the possession of the trait appears between John W.

Connecticut Historical Society: Francis, M. D., and Winfield

, . n£ Scott, major general U. S. A.,

Aggregate during spring, 1861. (<A, ,, , , ^u

say, At that time there were

Pages written 1,100 J .

Lines of poetry 850 few attempts at authorship among

Volumes read 18 Americans. . . . Rarely had a female

Garments made 51 writer trusted any evidence of her

Calls and visits exchanged... 600 literary taste to the press." On

this point President Dwight, too, has

Hartford, Friday, May 31, 1861. Holy said: "She was among the first of

Father, increase my industry, and its American women to venture within

beneficent results. — L. H. S. ... . ~ .. j 1 -i 1 1

the poetic held ; and while she has

Surely, the watchword of the times led the way, she deserves not only

was Industry ; and nothing could the praise awarded to a pioneer, but

rouse greater scepticism concerning the praise of a fair measure of suc-

the truth of familiar maxims about cess." But best of all is Whittier's

genius and perseverance than a quatrain, on the tablet in Christ

study of the fruits of their labors. Church, Hartford:

At the time, and for years later,

... , , 11 ^he sang alone, e er womanhood had

criticism seems to have been based known

upon the amount rather than upon The gift of song, which fills the air to

the quality of the production. La- day.

mentable proof of this is found in Tender and sweet, a music all her own,

forms of anthologies of poetesses; Ma^ *Uy , Hnger where she knelt to

for example, in the "Literary Women

of England," by Jane Williams In the early years of the nine-

(1861), of the ninety-three names in teenth century the closest approach

all, twenty-five are born after 1750. to a literary standard in the United

In "The Female Poets of America," States seems to have been the imi-

by T. B. Read (1855), there are tation of the literary fashions then

eighty-six names, the earliest being prevailing in England. Thus the

born after 1760. In looking back, favorite method of complimenting

through the perspective of the many Mrs. Sigourney was to rank her with

intervening years, these poetesses ap- some popular English writer, with

pear in so solid a phalanx that it is Mrs. Steele or Mrs. Barbauld. The

difficult to realize that they were in Christian Register (1845) praises her

fact widely scattered both as to time Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands

and place. But Mrs. Sigourney's as having all the charms which

view of the situation, "I adventured characterize the works of William

on what was in those times and in Howitt, and her sobriquet of The

that part of the country a novel enter- American Hemans, with Blackwood's

prise for a female," is shared by Magazine of 1834 as authority, "in

Others not personally concerned. The that she is the best of all the American

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(Connecticut Historical Society Rooms)

poetesses," is referred to frequently
and pridefully. In general re-
viewers agreed in considering it
praiseworthy that she should pour
out poetry with the same felicity as
prose, and in commending the un-
exceptionable moral character of her
writings. Perhaps the typical atti-
tude toward her work is shown in
The North American Review of 1835 :
"While she pleases the fancy, she
elevates the heart. Whenever, in-
stead of limiting her range to that
portion of the atmosphere which
can be traversed with a light and
careless wing, she shall prepare her-
self for a more adventurous flight,
she cannot fail to gain a permanent

place in the public favor." Illustrat-
ing the taste of the time, the judg-
ment of the Boston Daily Advertiser
of 1845 is interesting, that her work
is marked by "an entire freedom from
the affectation which forms the beset-
ting sin of the rising generation" ; or
the comment in Hours at Home, in
1865, that "Resisting the general ten-
dency to inflation . . . she adhered
to the pure standard of our best Eng-
lish classics, and aided to educate a
pure and classic use of our mother
tongue." If the Aikins, who in her
youth were regarded as the stand-
ards of polite literature, as it has been
said, were indeed her models, Mrs.
Sigourney should be congratulated

LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY

upon her success. In The Pictorial
Calendar (1843), D)' Dr- Jonn Aikin>
"the commencement of the gnat's life
of buoyancy" is described. But Mrs.
Sigourney tells us of a family horse,
"whose mild temper and obesity were
rover disturbed by ambition of pre-
cedence !" In the Life of Addison
1 1854) Miss Lucy Aiken remarks
that "Steele must have been destitute
of patrimony"; but Mrs. Sigourney
offers as her motive for teaching,
"Though my parents' mode of life
was in their apprehension entirely
consistent with comfort, I desired
that they might feel free to indulge in
a larger expenditure."

It was upon a literary wilderness
that Mrs. Sigourney entered. No
precepts of the time served as guides.
No straight pathways, hedged in by
prejudices in favor of the English
of Shakespeare, Milton and the Bible,
or of respect for the Eternal Verities,
lay before her untrained feet. Un-
trained, indeed, for it must be remem-
bered that her very varied school edu-
cation stopped when she was a child
of thirteen, and that her own literary
tastes were both as restricted and as
catholic as those of the time. "There
were literally no children's books at-
tainable by me. Young, with his sen-
tentious 'Night Thoughts,' initiated
me into the poetry of my native lan-
guage ; Addison's 'Spectator' and
Goldsmith's 'Vicar of Wakefield'
were the most amusing volumes in
rli'- library. Harvey's 'Reflections
Among the Tombs,' and Gesner's
'Death of Abel,' supplied the imagi-
nation with pleasant food." "That our
native tongue well expresses force
and energy we see in the writings of
Johnson, Young and Milton; that it

can move with ease, gracefulness and
beauty, Addison, Beattie and Blair
have taught us." What wonder then
that Mrs. Sigourney's literary course
seems to have followed one of her
childhood's joys, in "chasing meteors
o'er the lea."

It is as a poetess that Mrs. Sigour-
ney is chiefly known, although of her
fifty-six books the majority are in
prose. But at the time her verse
seems to have been much more popu-
lar, or at least to have been consid-
ered more of an achievement. To us
there seems little originality in any of
it. Its merit seems dependent rather
upon that of the poem upon which
Mrs. Sigourney, for the time being,
modelled her style. These models
were chosen from what lay convenient
to her hand, even as a good house-
wife makes a cake from what she has
in the house. Thus Mrs. Sigourney's
"Friendship with Nature" suggests
Bryant's "Thanatopsis" ; "Bell of the
Wreck," Cowper's "Loss of the Royal
George" ; "Grasmere and Rydal
Water" is after the manner of Words-
worth's "Excursion" ; "Thoughts at
the Grave of Sir Walter Scott" is in
his favorite ballad metres ; "The Elm
Trees" reminds one of Hood's "I Re-
member, I Remember" ; and "Con-
necticut River," of Goldsmith's "De-
serted Village." Her pure taste, deli-
cate imagination, piety, and what, in
our opinion, is an indispensable at-
tribute of a true poet, her good sense,
won esteem. This commendable
common-sense had a way of cropping
out, now and then, like ledges of New
England granite, in her most flowery
passages. Thus in "Gossip with a
Spring Bouquet," in "The Voice of
Flowers" (1845), sne saYs> —

LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY

"Narcissus pale!
Had you a mother, child, who kept you

close
Over your needle or your music books?
And never bade you sweep a room, or

make
A pudding in the kitchen?"

It is apparently in the same utili-
tarian spirit that her innumerable
obituary pieces, whatever their theme,
are cast in verse form; notable
among these is her tribute to Mary
Lyon, true rather than poetical :

" 'Twas not thine
To train the butterflies who sport and

flaunt.
In gaudy joyaunce 'mid the summer flow-
ers,—
And when the Frost King cometh,

shrink away
And disappear. It was not thine to train
For silken indolence, or proud display,
The talkers and not doers. Thou didst

make
Thy life the exponent of thy creed, and

show
The feasibility of theory,
By eloquent example." *

Many chapters of her books are
part poetry, part prose. Thus in
"Scenes in My Native Land," the
verse on Niagara, which is generally
chosen, by the way, by critics of the
time, to illustrate her loftiest style,
leads off, —

"Oh! full of glory and of majesty,
With all thy terrible apparel on,
High Priest of Nature, who within the

veil£
Mysterious, unapproachable dost dwell,
With smoke of incense ever streaming

up.
And round thy breast, the folded bow of

heaven,
Few are our words before thee."

This outburst is balanced by, —

*From manuscript in possession of Connecticut Histori-
cal Society.

"Transfixed by his emotions, the cas-
ual visitant . . . scarcely recollects
that the tributaries of this river or
strait cover a surface of 150,000
miles."

Plainly enough, poetry is not her
native element.

Of her prose, the examples quoted
here and there illustrate the style
which she considered suitable for ears
polite, which is so full of absurd af-
fectations that it is a dialect rather
than the English language. And did
her work stop here, with imitative
verse and artificial prose, we should
consider Mrs. Sigourney interesting
as an author of her time, and for it,
but without a link to bind her in
comradeship with those who have
written for all time; even as a quaint-
ly fashioned garment has charm as
epitomizing the manners and costume
of a bygone day, but cannot be re-
garded as a pattern. But the inter-
esting part of Mrs. Sigourney's writ-
ings lies in the fact that, although
broken in upon by "graceful and ele-
gant expressions" ; cut short to make
room for flowery platitudes; frag-
mentary at the best, — there are evi-
dences that she had latent capabilities
which, if but properly exercised, could
have rendered her work as free from
the popular affectations of her time
as though published yesterday.

In the first place, I venture to as-
sert that Mrs. Sigourney, when not
impressed by the dignity of her voca-
tion, had a mild sense of humor.
True, at her door must be laid "To a
Shred of Linen," with the fatal
phrase, —

"Methinks I scan
Some idiosyncrasy, that marks thee out
A defunct pillow-case."

LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY

But consider this informal descrip-
tion of a singing-school-taught choir,
rendering- the anthem, —

"No bolts to drive their guilty souls
To fiercer flames below."

"Off led the treble, having the air, and
expending con spiriio upon 'fiercer,' about
fourteen quavers. After us came the
tenors in a more dignified manner, bestow-
ing their principal emphasis on 'flames.'
•No bolts, no bolts,' shrieked a sharp
counter of boys, whose voices were in the
transition stage. But when a heavy bass,
like claps of thunder, kept repeating 'be-
low,' and finally all parts took up the bur-
den, till, in full diapason, 'guilty souls' and
•fiercer flames' reverberated from wall to
arch, it was altogether too much for Puri-
tanic patience."

Then there are bits of description
done with a delicacy and firmness of
touch, save where marred by her
foibles of style, which show that she
might have been one of the idyllists
of New England. In ''Connecticut
Forty Years Since" (1824), Mrs. Sig-
ourney outlines the scene of a
"warm spell" in winter, when spots
of tufted green appear as the wet
snow sinks into the black soil, and the
air has again a sweet earthy smell.
Then comes a blizzard. The elm
trees are almost bent double under
their heavy load of sleet and snow,
the fences are drifted over, the house-
walls banked, the windows and doors
blockaded ; and the road smooth and
white till beaten again into pathways
by heavy sledges, drawn by a score
of oxen. With a loving but pictur-
esque regard for detail, she recalls
also the living room of Mrs. Lathrop :

"That low-browed apartment, with all
its appointments, is before me. ... I see
its highly polished wainscot, crimson
moreen curtains, the larsre brass andirons,
with their silvery brightness, the clean

hearth, on which not even the white ashes
of the consuming hickory were suffered
to rest, the rich, dark shade of the furni-
ture, unpolluted by dust, and the closet
where the open door revealed its wealth
of silver cans, tankards and flagons."

Obviously, Mrs. Sigourney was
mistress of two literary styles. The.
one, which she naively terms "the lan-
guage of books" ; the other, which she
usually introduces with the phrase, —
and we can imagine her coughing
apologetically behind her slim hand, —
"to employ the vernacular speech." It
happens that she describes a New
England farmhouse in each style. In
the chapter on "Privileges of Age," in
"Past Meridian" (1854), we have it
thus:

"Traits of agricultural life, divested of its
rude and sordid toils, were pleasantly visi-
ble. A smooth-coated and symmetrical
cow ruminated over her clover-meal. A
faithful horse, submissive to the gentlest
rein, protruded his honest face through the
barn window. A few brooding mothers
were busy with the nurture of their
chickens, while the proud father of the
flock told, with a clarion voice, his hap-
piness."

Here is the other, from "Myrtis and
Other Etchings and Sketchings" :

"Cousin Jehoshaphat Jones, have a little
patience. Everything in its right place. I
guess you had better hear first consarning
my dealings at the minister's. My busi-
ness was to dig in the gardin, and to chop
wood, and to take care of the dumb crit-
ters, which consisted of an old horse, quite
lean in flesh, and a cow with balls at her
.horns, 'cause she routed down fences when
she could get a chance, and a flock of hens,
which it was a power of trouble to watch
and scare out of the neighbors' corn."

The least fragmentary example of
this honest style of hers, which ranks
her with any realist in rural New
England dialect and temper, is found

LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY

in a few pages in ''Connecticut Fortv
Years Since." The scene describes
Farmer Larkin, who has returned as
tenant to Mrs. Lathrop's farm, where
he had "driv team when a leetle boy/'
coming to pay his respects to his land-
lady. Finding it impossible to ap-
proach her by keeping to the bare
floor surrounding the rug, he ex-
claims,—

" T must tread on the kiverlid. . . .
Your ha-ath, too, is as clean as a cheeny
tea-cup, Ma'am. I hate to put my coarse
huffs on it. But I ha'n't been used to seein'
kiverlids spread on the floor to walk on.
We are glad to get 'em to kiver us up
with a nights. This looks like a boughten
one. 'Tis exceedin' cur'ous. They must
have had a-plenty many treadles in the loom
that wove this.' "

"Iii response to Mrs. Lathrop's in-
quiries as to the welfare of his family,
he replies,

" 'All stout and hearty, thank 'e,
Ma'am, as plump as partridges, and
swarmin' round like bees. Molly's the
oldest on 'em and as fat as butter. She'll
be fourteen years old, come the tenth of
February, and that will be Sabba-day arter
next. She weighs about twice as much
as you do, ma'am, I guess. She's rather
more stocky than her mother, and I hope
will be as smart for bizness. She'll spin
her run o' tow-yarn or woollen, afore
dinner ; and she has wove six yards a day,
of yard-wide sheetin'. She takes in weav-
ing when anybody will hire it done, and so
buys herself her bettermost clo'es, which
is a help to me. Jehoiakim, the oldest boy
— he's named after his gran-daddy — and
is a stout, stirrin' youngster. He'll hoe
near about as much corn in an hour as I
can; and cold winter days, he'll chop and
sled wood through the snow, without
frettin' a bit. But I s'pose 'tain't right
and fittin' to brag about my children,
Ma'am.

' 'They all go to the deestrict school,
more than ha-af o' the winter; though it's
nigh upon two mild from the house. In
the summer time it's kept a leetle spell by

a woman — and then the younger ones go,
to keep 'em out o' the way o' them who
are glad to work at home. I s'pose they
l'arn somethin' about readin' and sewin'.
But Tim, the third child, he's the boy for
l'arnin'. He took a prodigious likin' to
books, when he was a baby; and if you
only showed him one, he'd put it rite into
his mouth and stop squallin'. He ain't
but eleven year old now; and when he gets
a newspaper, there's no whoa to him, no
more than to the black ox when he sees
rhe haystack, till he's read it clear through,
advertisements and all. The master says
that he's the smartest of all the boys about
spellin', and now he takes to cipherin'
marvellouslv. So that I don't know but
that some time or other he may be hired
to keep our deestrict school. But I hope
my heart ain't lifted up with pride, at sich
great prospects, for I know that "God re-
sisteth the proud, and giveth grace unto
the humble." ' "

It has been said that Mrs. Sigour-
ney's besetting sins were complacency,
artificiality and vanity. In her auto-
biographical "Letters of Life" (1864)
her attitude toward her own liter-
ary work is complacent only in
viewing its accomplishment; and that
results naturally from a sense of duty
done, and expresses itself in a univer-
sal kindliness that is surely praise-
worthy. Her artificiality, too, seems
to be, as it were, itself artificial. Un-
der her affectations lies an unim-
peachable sincerity of character.
Further, without tempering justice
with mercy, we may change the re-
proach of vanity into the more ac-
curate inordinate love of praise.
Herein lies both the weakness of her
character and the consequent weak-
ness of her work.

From her babyhood she had been
noted for her goodness. When a
schoolgirl she was the monitress;
when a young lady, a pattern of de-
corum ; when married, a model help-

LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY

meet ; when a writer, an authoress of
whom America was proud. She was
good because it was good to be good,
she was good by nature, and she was
good by choice; because the results
of goodness brought her her dearest
possession, — a meed of praise. True,
she was in the main a hack writer,
and the greater number of her work
are potboilers. But aside from this,
the star to which she hitched her
wagon, in the pathless literary field
which she entered as a girl of twenty
and left as a woman of seventy, was
approbation, popular and immediate.
She did not want to obtain fame as
either eccentric or strong-minded, but
as a sort of literary Lady Bountiful.
In her nature there was a warmth, a
romanticism, an aesthetic yearning for
all that is graceful and lovable, which
found no other means of gratification
than in being accommodating. She
dreaded to be called queer, and she
loved to be thanked and to be called
nice j with all the feminine implication
of the words. So she followed the
fashion of the moment with a docil-
ity broken only in a few brief pas-
sages. And she had her reward.

But, the pity of it ! True, in our
lamentations over her defects, we

should remember that she lived in an
age characterized by production
rather than by criticism, and that
therefore, in spite of her occasional
flashes of art, she may have been
proudest of the work that we con-
demn ; we have no reason to think
that she forsook methods which she
knew to be good, for those which she
knew to be worthless. Whereas, we,
living in an age characterized by criti-
cism rather than by production, are
judging her work by standards of
whose existence she was either igno-
rant or oblivious, by dogmas of taste
flatly contradicted since the years
when Mrs. Sigourney wrote, with a
care "for ears polite" ; and if we laugh
at her unquestioning adoption of pre-
vailing modes, in these days when the
most mild mannered of our citizens
joy in the clash of swords and ring
of shield, we are laughing at our-
selves. Yet, is there not a grim
humor in the situation, of this dainty,
plucky little lady of letters, capable of
writing with simplicity and vividness
and veracity, being thus influenced by
a passing literary fashion? And has
not the work of Mrs. Sigourney its
significance in the literary history of
our countrv ?

P%*F

^a*^

A Closed Account

By Helen B. Smith

ISS LAVINIA sat in her
favorite rocking chair
looking about her fa-
miliar room. Somehow
everything looked strange to her.
She had left the little gray house
less than an hour before, and since
then sentence of death had been pro-
nounced upon her. Not an immi-
nent death, but a certain one, and
she sat there trying to adjust her
mind to this new point of view.

She had expected to live to old
age, like her long-lived ancestors —
her father and grandfather and
mother were well in the eighties
when they let go of life, and she
was only fifty-five. She had always
been a well, strong woman, but in
the past year there had been queer
flutterings and pains in her left side
which had sent her at last to the
doctor. After close listenings and
many questions, he sat back in his
chair and looked at her gravely.

"Well?" she said quietly.

"Miss Lavinia," he answered, in
his slow, kind way, "I should an-
swer some women differently, but I
know you are a brave woman.
Shall I be plain with you?"

Her hands tightened on the arms
of her chair, but she said instantly,
"I want the truth."

"You shall have it. There is a
serious trouble with your heart,
which means — the end. It may

come at any time, but it will proba-
bly be delayed somewhat."

"How long?"

"Possibly several years. I should
judge not more than two or three."

Miss Lavinia was silent for a mo-
ment, then she said, fervently,
"Thank the Lord ! That bridge is
crossed."

"But I hope you will not cross
the bridge for a long time. I may
be mistaken."

"That wasn't what I had in
mind," she said briefly, but made no
further explanation, only stepping
back to say, "I wish you wouldn't
tell anybody ; I don't want to be
watched and pitied."

Now, in her quiet home, she
thought over her visit and rejoiced
in spirit, for it meant to her a great
deliverance. She looked round upon
her old-fashioned belongings. "You
are old, all of you," she said to
them, "but there ain't going to be
any old age for me, thank the
Lord !"

She thought of her father's and
mother's lives ; hard and merci-
lessly bare, stripped of all pleasant
things, to make provision, poor a.t
best, for the ever-threatening "old
age." They had succeeded, to the
extent of dying quietly in their own
home in the knowledge that they
could be buried by their own
money, and that their daughter

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would inherit the little gray house,
unincumbered, and six hundred dol-
lars in the savings bank. And this
was the reward for over fifty years
of unremitting toil. Since their
death, Miss Lavinia had faithfully
served in the old bondage.

There are various kinds of econo-
my, but no one knows what the
word really means, until he knows
the self-respecting, soul-racking
economy of our smaller New Eng-
land towns, where the people are
too near together for the utter going
without possible to scattered farms,
and not near enough together to be
indifferent to each other.

Miss Lavinia was past master of
this sad science. She knew the
very fewest pieces of kindling wood
that would start her fire, and how
to nurse its small life to the greatest
length. She made her own lamp-
lighters, and in winter the match
which lighted her morning fire was
the only one used through the day.
She carefully straightened bent pins
and needles, and saved every end
of thread. When she had butter on
her bread, which was seldom, it was
spread out to a mere film, and her
tea leaves were steeped again and
again. Her wardrobe was the hard-
est to manage, but she dyed and
turned and cobbled and darned, and
managed to look respectable, and
only those who practised the same
rites recognized the signs of dis-
tress.

By dint of this sort of thing and
the doing of whatever her hands
found to do, helped out by the in-
come from her six hundred dollars,
she had managed to live — rather to
keep alive — without encroaching

upon her principal. But she had
an innate sense of breadth and beau-
ty, and her life had been a daily
crucifixion, which was now ended.

She went into her tiny bedroom
and took her bank book from its
hiding place. What a story it told,
with its pitiful entries of two and
three dollars. But when she looked
at the total she was almost awed.
How could she ever spend it all?

The old clock slowly told off five
strokes, reminding her of supper
time. As she passed it she laid her
hand on it and looked up to its
familiar face. She felt a new af-
fection for this old friend.

From lifelong habit she took the
smallest stick in the box to replen-
ish her fire, but after a moment she
followed it with the largest. Then
she emptied the teapot, though the
leaves had been steeped only twice,
and brewed herself a fresh cup. It
had been her custom to sit without a
light until her early bedtime ; but
as dusk came on she lighted her
lamp, turned the wick up to a gen-
erous flame, built up her fire and
sat down before it with a comfort-
able sense of plenty.

The next morning she woke as
to a new life. The old grinding
poverty was like a bad dream now
past. She who had lived on a hun-
dred dollars a year now had six
hundred to spend in two or three
years. Yes, and more, for she
could raise four or five hundred on
the little gray house. A thousand
dollars! What wealth!

She entered into the enjo)^ment
of her prosperity at once by hailing
the passing butcher cart and buying
herself a bit of meat. Later she

A CLOSED ACCOUNT

took the little money she had left,
went to the grocery and bought cof-
fee and butter and fruit, things she
had often longed for. She stopped
on the way home and left two of the
largest oranges with a neighbor
who was sick and poor. Oh, but this
was the very luxury of wealth, to
be able to give to others !

Filled with this new and exquisite
joy, Miss Lavinia trod lightly
homeward, dined sumptuously, and
turned her attention to the needs
of her wardrobe. She sat a long
time with pencil and paper, anx-
iously adding and subtracting, but
the next day she who had drawn her
tiny dividends with trembling fore-
bodings, boldly drew twenty-five
dollars from her principal and went
shopping.

Having the instincts of a lady,
her first thought was of her hands
and feet. She bought a pair of neat
shoes — not too good, for they would
not be needed so very long — and
some soft gray gloves, the first good
gloves she had ever owned. Then
to the milliner's. Really, Miss La-
vinia was learning her lesson very
readily.

The milliner came forward, smil-
ingly, for though she expected no
enrichment, she knew and liked her
customer.

"I see you have your spring bon-
nets in the window, and I suppose
it is time I was thinking of mine."
she said, easily, as if a new bonnet
each season was the natural order
of things. "How much is that one?"
indicating a tasteful bonnet on one
of the standards.

"That is six dollars. The straw
is fine and the ribbon extra quality."

"Oh," said Miss Lavinia in dismay,
"haven't you anything cheaper?"

"I've got a bonnet here, some-
where, that we trimmed for the
doctor's wife, last spring. Then
she went into mourning for her
brother and didn't want it."

Rummaging among her boxes she
produced a gray straw trimmed
with soft silk and violets. "There,
that might have been made for
you," setting it on her customer's
head and deftly tying the shining
ribbons- "It suits you to a T,"
and she turned her around to a mir-
ror.

Miss Lavinia looked and could
not help seeing how perfectly the
modest bonnet framed her pretty-
gray hair. "How much?" she
asked in a very small voice.

"Well, seeing it's you, and the
bonnet is a little out of style, I'll
call it three dollars."

To Miss Lavinia, whose one bon-
net had been worn, with few
changes, for ten years, it seemed
radiantly fresh, and she promptly
took out her worn pocketbook.
When she reached home she care-
fully dusted a stand by the window,
set her new bonnet upon it, laid the
gloves beside it, and sat down and
feasted her eyes. How pretty they
were, and how perfectly they suited
each other ! This was the first aes-
thetic gratification of her life, and
she had a sense of being fed more
than by her good dinner.

That night she lay awake a long
time, pondering a fearsome step.
It seemed like flying in the face of
Providence, but the nibble she had
had whetted her appetite. The
next morning she took a trolley for

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the city, some ten miles distant, and
returned with a large box.

On the beautiful May Sunday fol-
lowing, the congregation of the
Cranfield Baptist Church expe-
rienced a distinct shock, for as the
people turned after the benediction
there came from Miss Lavinia's
humble sitting under the gallery a
well dressed lady in a quiet gray
suit, with irreproachable bonnet
and gloves. Was it? No, it could
not be ! It certainly was Miss La-
vinia! Church etiquette forbade
surrounding her and demanding the
how and when, but it did not pre-
vent sundry nudgings and smiles
and raised eyebrows. A good many
people shook hands with her, and on
her way home several dropped be-
hind her to inspect her at leisure.
It was really a triumph in a small
way.

Over their Sunday dinner the
doctor's wife told him about it.
''And how she managed it beats
me," she finished, "for everybody
knows she has the merest pittance.
Either she has come into money or
she is losing her mind and using up
what she has. Somebody ought to
look into it."

"I knew a man once," remarked
the doctor mildly, reaching for an-
other biscuit, "who amassed a for-
tune by minding his own business.
It's worth trying. My dear, I don't
believe there's another woman in
town who can make biscuits like
these."

One of the keenest sorrows of
Miss Lavinia's poverty had been its
loneliness. The chill barrenness of
the little gray house and her anx-
ious face had not drawn her neigh-

bors, and as she could not invite
others to her table, she had declined
her few invitations. She had
nothing to give. Even her small
friendly services had their material
value and were paid for in one way
or another.

But now things were changed.
She occasionally asked a neighbor
to tea, or carried a loaf of bread to
some poor, overworked mother.
The bunches of sage and spearmint
from her little garden, which, here-
tofore, she had sold, now she gave
away, and she often did little neigh-
borly kindnesses, for which she
would take no pay. She subscribed
for a religious weekly, and instead
of the dollar a year which, out of
her poverty, she had given to mis-
sions, she now gave five. People
wondered, for it had become known
in some mysterious way that she
was using up her principal ; but the
one man who understood made no
sign.

One day, driving his rounds, he
overtook Miss Lavinia a little way
out of the town and brought her in.
"I don't see any one who seems to
enjoy life more than you do," he
said, looking at the peaceful face
beside him.

"I am just finding out how good
life can be."

"Do you find it so pleasant that
you would wish it prolonged?"

"If it could be as it is now. But
to be old and poor and dependent —
oh, I would rather die to-day!"

He did not answer at once, and a
terrible fear seized her. "You don't
mean," she gasped, — "you don't mean
that I have got to have an old age
after all ?"

A CLOSED ACCOUNT

He marked her fluttering breath
and the veins throbbing in her tem-
ple, and said gently, "I see no rea-
son, Miss Lavinia, to change the
opinion I gave you a year ago. May
I ask if you have enough to carry
you through?"

"I have three hundred dollars left.
I've spent a great deal of money
this year." She looked at him as if
expecting blame, but the good man's
smile reassured her.

"The money has been well spent.
You know what it has done for you,
and I often find traces of it among
my poor patients. When you need
more come to me. I will lend. you
the value of your place and you can
will it to me, and nobody need
know anything about it till after-
ward;" and he set Miss Lavinia
down at her gate with her one great-
anxiety smoothed away.

One July Sunday, as she sat read-
ing her Bible, she came to the
words, "There shall 'be no more
sea." "No more sea," she repeated
to herself. "I did hope that some
of the things I haven't had here I
should get there. But that settles
it. If there ain't going to be- any
ocean I never shall see it. And I
always wanted to." Was it chance
that, in her very next week's paper,
an advertisement caught her eye of
board at moderate rates in a small
fishing village some two hours' ride
from Cranfield?

Miss Lavinia called it a provi-
dence, and immediately wrote a let-
ter.

When it was known that she was
going to the seashore,, her part of
the town fairly rocked. Some
thought she should be forcibly de-

tained, but she quietly made her
few preparations, and one day
stood, for the first time, at the
ocean's edge. North, east, and
south, to the horizon, stretched the
undulating green plain. Miss La-
vinia gazed and gazed entranced.
At last out of her starved expe-
rience leaped the words, "Oh, how
good it seems to see something there
is enough of." Later its power and
beauty and majesty laid hold upon
her so that when at a week's end
she journeyed back to Cranfield,
she took with her something which
she kept to the very end, and when-
ever the minister read about "the
wonders of the deep," she had only
to close her eyes to feel the salt
breeze in her face and see again the
wondrous shining vision. AC^VS ^

In her years of loneliness she had
longed for a bird or a cat, — any-
thing she could talk to, — but the
tiny expense of its food could not
be thought of. Now, as if to prove
the words, "To him that hath shall
be given," she opened her door one
morning upon a half-starved yellow
kitten. Miss Lavinia welcomed it
as a gift from Heaven, and under
her generous feeding and tender
care it developed into a purring ball
of happiness, the very apple of her
eye. It was an ever fresh delight
to her to see the little yellow head
against the window when she re-
turned from an errand, and to hear
the scampering little feet about the
rooms that had been so deadly still.
She held long one-sided conversa-
tions with it, and Goldie's affection
and cunning ways furnished her
with a constant theme. Life had
grown very full and rich.

A CLOSED ACCOUNT

So the quiet, happy days slipped
away until nearly three years had
gone, and Miss Lavinia found her-
self saying each morning, "I won-
der if it will come to-day." There
was no shadow of fear, only a pro-
found thankfulness that lent a ten-
der gravity to her face and an added
kindliness to her manner. The
new year was approaching and she
felt a deep longing to gather her
friends about her — while she could.
So, some who had grown near to
her were bidden, and she busied
herself in hospitable preparations.
New Year's day was darkened early
by Goldie's tragic death. A stray
dog fell upon the happy creature
sitting on the sunny doorstep and
shook its life out under Miss La-
vinia's very eyes. She tried to go
to its rescue, but a terrible pain
through her heart and a mor-
tal weakness chained her to her
chair.

She made a brave effort to greet
her friends cheerfully, but their
New Year's greetings seemed a
mockery with Goldie gone, and

they, noticing her pale face, left her
early.

The next morning her neighbors
noticed that no smoke came from
her chimney, and when repeated
knockings brought no response, an
entrance was forced and Miss La-
vinia was found lying in her bed
with still, peaceful face. She had
entered, indeed, upon her Happy
New Year.

All traces of the evening's gather-
ing had been removed, and the lit-
tle gray house was in perfect or-
der. On her bureau was a paper
telling where her will and bank-
book and graveclothes could be
found and giving a few directions
for her burial.

When her will was opened it was
found that the little house was left
to Dr. Geer, and after dividing her
few personal belongings among her
friends, it provided that the Cran-
field Baptist Church should have ail
that remained. When Miss Lavinia
was buried and all her debts paid
the residuary legatee received six
dollars.

Wenina

By Lucy M. Sawyer

ALL day long through the
burning heat the troop
_ pushed on. The night be-
fore they had camped on
the low ground, and the number of
men added to the sick list the next
morning had warned the captain to
brave the heat of the day in search of
a village, rather than risk another
night in the swamps. Encouraging
the men by leading the way himself
through the tangled vines and under-
brush, he was rewarded toward
evening by suddenly coming upon a
small sugar plantation. Scouts were
immediately sent ahead and soon the
bearer of the white flag was demand-
ing the inhabitants of the little village
to surrender.

But there had been no need of any
such precaution. All the men of the
place, down to the boys large enough
to carry a gun, were away with the
army which was to drive the hated
white stranger from the islands.
The few old men who were left, to-
gether with the women and children,
ra'n and hid themselves in their miser-
able huts, out of which they could be
enticed only after long arguments by
the troops, and after being convinced
that they were not to be led out and
shot, but that all the .men wanted was
food and lodging. An hour after the
detachment had entered the village
every woman in Bereo was preparing
food for the strangers, but not with-

out many an anxious glance at the
intruders.

Night settled down, and sentinels
having been posted, the troops were
indulging in a well earned rest, with
the exception of Captain Nelson and
Lieutenant Graham. They had taken
possession of the hut of the chief of
the village, now guarded by his
daughter, a girl of sixteen, and the
old grandfather. All overtures of
peace on the part of the two men
toward the old patriarch had been
unavailing, and not a word of
response could they get from the
man whose son was now a hunted
wanderer, with a price on his head,
and whose village had been twice en-
tered and despoiled by the white
troops. In silence he watched them
eat, and after partaking of his own
meal, retired to a corner of the room,
and gradually sank into slumber.

Wenina, meanwhile, went about her
accustomed work, and now that the
white men had eaten, and there was
no immediate sign that she and her
grandfather were to be massacred,
her fear gradually wore away, and she
listened curiously to the strange
language of the bearded man and his
smooth faced friend. After her work
was finished she sat down in the door-
way of the hut, apparently watching
the road, but with one eye constantly
on the strangers. They were poring
over an old map, and from places

WENINA

they mentioned now and then she
gathered that they were trying to
trace the nearest route to the coast.

Suddenly the Captain turned and
spoke to her in her own tongue.

"Do you know anything about the
country around here?" he asked, more
gruffly then he really meant to; but
these Filipinos had caused him many
weary days' marches.

Wenina turned her head slightly,
but remained as silent as though he
had spoken to her in English.

"You try her, Graham," he said,
after he had waited in vain for her to
speak.

Lieutenant Graham smiled, and
turning to the girl said softly,
"Senora, you will take cold if you
sit there with the dew falling. Won't
you come in and talk with us
awhile ?"

The girl turned her head, and
slowly surveyed the Lieutenant. Then
with a sudden blush she rose, and
closing the door, seated herself in a
low chair which he drew up to the
table round- which they were seated.

"Ask her about the route," the
Captain said to him impatiently.

"Presently," the Lieutenant an-
swered ; and he began to talk to We-
nina about herself, her life, and her
family and friends. Very few were
the girl's answers at first; but as her
distrust wore away she yielded more
and more to his gentle manner, and
before she knew it found herself talk-
ing freely about her father, her native
lover, and the hatred and fear in
which they all held the while
strangers. The Captain listened im-
patiently while this dialogue was be-
ing carried on, now twisting im-
patiently in his chair, and now walking

nervously up and down the small
room.

"For pity's sake hurry and get
to your point," he interrupted at last,
"or we shall be here all night."

"Patience," the Lieutenant an-
swered again; "if we frighten her we
shall learn nothing."

He turned to Wenina again, and
drawing the map toward them said,
"Now do you suppose you could find
where you live?"

The girl was indignant. Did he think
she knew nothing because she was
a' Filipino maiden and did not under-
stand the strange language he and
his gruff companion spoke? Rising,
she went to a small closet in the
room, and brought out a torn, dirty
map printed in the Spanish language.
Proudly she pointed out the location
of the village, and before she realized
it she had traced out the route for
them from village to village, to the
coast. Her conscience smote her once
or twice when she thought that she
was giving information to the hated
strangers flashed through her mind ;
but she quickly put the thought
aside by the reflection that her father
and lover were in an entirely differ-
ent part of the island. When she had
finished, the Captain rose and pre-
pared to go. The old grandfather
roused himself at the same time, and
seeing the strangers about to leave,
left the room. Lieutenant Graham
went to the door with the Captain,
but looking back saw a wistful look
on the girl's face.

"I will just stay to say good night
to her," he said, and the Captain
went out, leaving them alone. Lieu-
tenant Graham walked over to where
the girl was standing, and taking her

WENINA

hand, said gently, "Don't let any-
thing you have said to-night trouble
you. You have done nothing for
which you should at all reproach
yourself, and I should not like to feel
that you were worrying about it. You
know we should find our way to the
coast even if you had not helped us.'"'
"But my father, what would he
say?" the girl faltered, her eyes filling
with tears, "and Junita, he would
kill me if he knew."

"They will never know," he replied,
" and you have done nothing wrong.
I understand your father and lover
are in another part of the island, and
there is not the slightest chance of
our meeting them, so you need have
no fear about that. Come, I must
go, and I don't like to leave you look-
ing so sad."

The girl tried to smile, but the -tears
would come, and seeing them the
Lieutenant drew her chair up for her
again, and seating himself opposite,
began to talk to her, hoping to divert
her mind. Instead of questioning her
again about her life, he told her of
the lives of the women he knew in far
off America, of their happy child-
hood, and how when they grew to be
women, but a good deal older than
she was, they met some man they
loved, and married him. The girl
forgot her sorrow in listening to him,
and her eyes grew soft and bright.

"And they marry some one they
love," she said, "I think that would
be nice."

"And do you not love Junita," he
asked her, looking at the sweet face
gazing up into his.

"Oh, no," she replied quickly, "my
father likes him because he is rich
and brave, and will be the chief when

he is gone. But he is hard and cruel
and I only fear him."

Poor little girl, the Lieutenant
thought, but I suppose it is the same
with all of them. Give us fifty years
on the islands, and we will change all
that.

"Well, little one, I really must go,"
he said, "for your grandfather will
put me out. I am coming over to
breakfast, remember, and must see
no tears."

Wenina gazed after him until he
was lost in the darkness.

"They marry the man they love,"
she kept repeating to herself, as she
closed the house for the night. All
night long she tossed, and turned,
waking with a start from a feverish
dream, in which Lieutenant Graham's
strong face had been the central
object.

"And they marry the man they
love." The thought had entirely
driven out all her remorse at the in-
formation she had given the Captain,
and it was with her as she prepared
the morning meal. But the Lieu-
tenant had said there were to be no
tears ; so putting a red poppy in her
dark hair she met her guests with a
smiling- face.

That morning was the happiest in
the girl's life. Under one pretext or
another the Lieutenant lingered
around the hut, telling her story
after story of his native land, and
trying to ease his conscience for the
slight wrong he had done her in
getting her to give him the informa-
tion she had the night before. And
Wenina listened, drinking in every
word, and getting him to tell her of
girls he knew who had married men
they loved.

WENINA

So the day wore on, and with the
cool of the afternoon the troops
started on their march again, for the
Captain was anxious to reach the
next village, which commanded a
better position of the surrounding
country.

The Lieutenant held Wenina's
hand as he said good by, but he
did not again refer to their conversa-
tion of the night before, thinking it
the best way to help her forget it.
• Climbing the hill back of her house,
Wenina gazed after the retreating
troops until the last white hat had
disappeared in the dark woods; then
she threw herself on the ground and
gave way to the flood of tears she
could no longer keep back. "And
they marry the man they love." And
she had to marry Junita. Never! she
would die first. She would run
away to America, and live like one of
the white girls he had told her about.
What had any of them done that
they should be better favored than
she? A thousand improbable ideas
chased one another through her mind,
made all the more bitter by the
knowledge underlying them all that
she would marry Junita, and live and
die his household slave. When night
fell and she was obliged to return to
her home her sobs and cries had
ceased, but an intense hatred of
Junita filled her heart. She did not
know that she hated him the more
now because she loved another; she
was too ignorant to realize her feel-
ings, but a loathing and fear of the
man, greater than she had felt before,
had taken possession of her.

As she neared the village she
noticed an unusual stir going on, and
her heart beat fast as she thought for

an instant that perhaps the troops had
lost their way, and had returned for
the night. But entering her hut she
started back with an exclamation of
fear as Junita rose to greet her.

"Why are you so late?" her grand-
father asked peevishly. "Junita has
been waiting long for his supper, and,
besides, you should not stay out so
late with the foreigners around."

"I lost my way," she faltered ; "but
my father, where is he ?"

"Your father will never return," re-
plied Junita, more gently than he was
wont to speak. "Beyond the hills we
buried him, worn out with hunger
and the marches. But I will care for
you now, Wenina ; it was his last
Avish. When I return from our next
march I will marry you and take you
home with me."

Wenina stood still, the tears once
more rolling down her cheeks.

"Come, come, child, you mustn't
cry so," the grandfather broke in.
"My son has given his life for his
country, and you must not grieve for
him. Besides, it is late, and I am
hungry," he went on peevishly.

Poor old man! His only son was
dead, but a merciful Providence had
ordained that he could only partly
grasp the fact, and his body cried for
its accustomed food.

Wenina dried her tears and pre-
pared the evening meal. It was not
that her father had been so much to
her, but, excepting her grandfather,
he was all she had, and now she must
marry Junita at once. In a dazed
sort of way she listened to him talk-
ing to her grandfather and telling
him stories of the fights and retreats.
His unusual kindness toward herself
was lost on the girl, and after the

WENINA

meal was cleared away she drew her
low chair to the door, and burying
her face in her hands, gave herself up
to the whirl of thoughts that went
round and round in her brain.
Junita's hand on her shoulder roused
her.

"Come, Wenina," he said, "your
grandfather has gone to bed, and now
we must talk over our plans for the
future. You know when I return
next time I want to find a smiling
bride waiting for me."

"Where are you going?" she asked,
feeling she must say something.

"After the troops who left to-day.
of course. We will give them time to
leave Rinika and fall on them in the
swamps between there and the hills.
If we can only come upon them una-
wares we can kill every one. Those
who escape will get lost in the hills ;
we will track them down, and your
father will be avenged."

Wenina dared not trust herself to
reply. One word from her would
betray the interest she felt in this
particular company ; so, without an-
swering him, she began to talk to him
about her father and their future
home together.

But Junita was full of the victory
he had planned, and ever and again
he brought the subject back to the
coming fight. It was generally
thought that the white troops would
stay that night at the next village,
and, eager to get beyond the hills be-
fore another night fell, would start
early in the morning for the day's
march. But the natives, who knew
the difficulties to be encountered in
that day's march, knew that night
would probably find the enemy still
fighting their way through the damp,

dark swamp. And then they would
surround them and strike.

Wrenina listened as in a dream,
striving not to betray her agitation,
and thankful when the last good night
had been said and she was alone once
more. What should she do? Her
brain was in a whirl, and she opened
the little window and leaned out to
get the cool night air. Should she
betray the plans of her own people
and draw down upon her her father's
curse. But her father was dead now,
and if, as she had been taught, he was
in another world, where he knew all,
would he not see that his race was
fighting a hopeless battle, and the
sooner it was ended the better? And
Junita! He would kill her, of course,
but that would be better than having
to marry him. At this thought she
grew suddenly cold, and closed the
window. "And they marry the man
they love." Did some girl love the
Lieutenant? At any rate, he must
be saved. But how? His company
was in Rinika to-night, and to-
morrow the men would be in the
swamps, footsore and weary, losing
their way, and having to camp for the
night where the enemy could sur-
round them. Her people were to
leave early the next morning, and by
a forced march could catch up with
the white troops at dark. If she was
to reach them in time she must start
at once. How she should find them
in the swamp she must leave to fate.
Having decided on her course, her
next step was to get a horse- There
was no help for it ; she must take
Junita's. At all events her flight
would be discovered the next morn-
ing; but whether her grandfather
would guess the truth or not, she did

WENINA

not know. If he did, it was only an
added reason why she should start
at once, for she would be obliged to
make a long detour of Rinika in order
that they might not trace her.

Rising, she stole softly to the liv-
ing room, filled a small basket with
food and a pouch with water, and
stole out of the house. The horse
was fastened in the bushes near by,
and very carefully she loosened the
halter and led him farther into the
woods. Her heart failed her as the
branches cracked beneath his feet, but
her grandfather could not hear, and
Junita was sleeping the sleep of ex-
haustion. The outskirt of the village
was gained in safety, and, mounting,
she took the road for Rinika. Hour
after hour she rode, and when the sun
sent its first rays piercing through
the trees, she took a detour to the
left which would take her around
about two miles from the village.
After another three hours' ride she
n eared the road on the other side of
the village. Here she paused. She
had a five hours' start of the men, but
her horse had been able to go
scarcely faster than they could walk,
and it had taken at least two hours
to make the detour of the village.

That would give her three hours'
start. But she must be at least an
hour ahead of the troops, allowing
that all were equally fortunate in
finding the trail. Two hours she
could rest, must rest, if she were to be
able to stand the terrible journey of
tli at day. Watering the horse, she
tied him in the bushes, and, after eat-
ing a hasty meal, threw herself on
the ground and slept. When she
awoke the sun was high in the
heavens, and she realized that it must

be nearly noon. Taking another
hasty meal, she led the horse nearer
the outskirts of the village, and, tying
him again, hoped that some village:
might find him later. The rest of her
journey she must make on foot. She
had lost so much time that she was
obliged to strike into the main road
and take her chances of .meeting some
one who knew her. The only person
she met was an old woman, a native
of Rinika, who stopped her with a
pleasant greeting.

"Good day, Senora. You are a
stranger here. Are you not afraid to
go away from home with the white
men around?"

"Are the white strangers near?"
inquired Wenina, hoping to get some
information without betraying her-
self.

"Not now," replied the woman ;
"they left our village very early this
morning. But where were you last
night, that you did not know they
were in our village?"

"I was lost in the woods coming
from Bero- I have an aunt and a
cousin coming from beyond the hills
to see me, and I was to meet them at
Rinika, but I lost my way and was
going along this road to see if they
were coming."

"Pray heaven they have not
started," the woman replied fervently,
"or if they have, that they will escape
the strangers. And you, Sefiora, had
better return to the village and wait
for them. You can do no good by
entering the swamps."

"Thank you," Wenina replied, "I
will go only a little farther, and if I
do not meet them coming I will re-
turn to the village and find you."

She hurried on before her ques-

WENINA

doner could reply. Her excuse had
been a poor one, she knew, but she
had given the only answer she could
think of quickly, and it really mattered
little now what report the woman
spread in Rinika as long as she had
gotten rid of her. One thing she had
learned that comforted her. The
white company had departed some
hours before, and her people had
evidently not yet reached the village.
With a lighter heart she hurried on,
and soon entered the low ground.
The afternoon wore on and she met
not a living soul, nor heard a sound
of any troops ; but her people might
be hunting in a different part of the
swamp. Now that she was beginning
to be tired and footsore her spirits
sank, and she saw what an almost
hopeless task she had undertaken. If
the white men found their -way
through the swamp in safety, what
was left for her to do but to return to
the village? And how could she ex-
plain her absence and the theft of the
horse? Life seemed sweeter to her
now than it did the night before, and
after all she had been a chief's
daughter and would be a chief's wife.
Tired and faint, she seated herself on
the ground and ate the remainder of
the food she had brought. Some-
what refreshed, she started on again,
and soon reached the end of the
swamp. The hills were before her —
but which road should she take?
After a moment's hesitation she de-
cided to climb the hill nearest to her;
as it was higher than any of the
others she could command a better
view of the country and might 'be re-
paid for the time it would take. Up
and up she went, crawling on her
hands and knees as she neared the

top of the hill, that she might not be
seen. Lying fiat she looked ahead.
The hill beyond was lower than the
one from which she looked, and on
the level ground still farther beyond
the white troops were pitching their
tents. Then she was in time. She
paused for an instant to look back
before she descended the other side of
the hill, and her heart stood still.
Creeping, crawling, along in the
swamps she had left such a short
time before was a ragged, unkempt
band of about two hundred men. She
recognized, or thought she recognized,
Junita. For a moment she was filled
with terror, but in an instant she had
recovered herself, and, fear lending
speed to her feet, she ran as fast as
possible down the hillside. Panting,
stumbling, falling, she reached the
bottom of the hill, ran as fast as she
could across the valley, and began to
climb the last hill. If she only could
gain the top before her people reached
the summit of the one she had left she
would be in time to warn the troops.
Twice she turned to look back, but
they were not yet in sight. The sum-
mit was almost reached when a
fierce shout from behind almost froze
her blood, and turning, she saw they
had gained the top of the hill, and had
discovered and recognized her. Ii.
was a question of minutes now, and,
unheeding the cries of the infuriated
men as they rushed down the hill, she
pushed on. The top was reached,
and, snatching the red kerchief from
round her throat, she shouted with all
her might, and waved her impromptu
flag. At first her cries did not reach
the men below, but she dared not.
start down the hillside for fear the
trees would hide her from them.

AN EXPERIMENT IN FORESTRY

Time after time she cried, and, after
what seemed an age, she was re-
warded by seeing- one of the soldiers
look up. Frantically she waved her
flag and pointed backwards. The
man gave the alarm, and in an
instant the troops came rushing
out of the tents. She could

just recognize the Captain and
a man whom she thought was
the Lieutenant, and with a cry of
joy she dropped her flag and started
to run for her life. But she had lost
valuable time while stopping to sig-
nal to the men, and, looking around
once more at her pursuers, she saw
that, ahead of the rest, Junita was
gaining on her fast. Down the hill
she fled, not daring to look behind
her again. The white troop had
evidently understood the situation by
this time and were drawn up in
battle line, ready to fire at the first
head that appeared above the brow
of the hill.

Down Wenina fled. Another five
minutes and she would be within the

lines, but the Lieutenant, who was
anxiously watching her, saw her stop
suddenly, throw up her arms, and
fall forward. Almost instantaneously
with the click of the revolver that
sent the fatal bullet, the musket shots
rang out sharp and clear, and another
solitary figure on the brow of the hill
fell backwards.

At the word of command from the
Captain the men charged up the hill,
to be met at the top by the Filipinos.
For ten minutes the combat raged
around the body of their dead leader,
but at the end of that time the rebels
were glad to flee in wild disorder down
the hillside. Halfway down the hill
the Captain paused, and tenderly
lifted up the dead body of Wenina.
Lieutenant Graham joined him, and
looked long at the face of the girl.

" I wonder why she did it," he said,
turning to the Captain, and placing
his handkerchief over the unseeing
eyes.

The captain looked at him curi-
ously.

An Experiment in Forestry

By Max Bennett Thrasher

WE all know what Mahomet
did when the mountain
would not come to him.
For two hundred and
fifty years after the settlement of
Xew England the forests on the
mountains came to the mills, to be
sawed into lumber; but now, in this
age of concentrated haste, the mills

have gone to the mountains. The
currents of the rivers down which
the logs once floated run as swiftly
as ever, but men's desires run swift-
er than they once did. The yoked
oxen and harnessed horses move
with their accustomed speed over
the country roads, but the calcula-
tions of the men of to-day move

AN EXPERIMENT IN FORESTRY

faster than did those of their fathers.
In these latter years the lumber-
men came to see that if logs could
be sawed into boards on the ground
where the trees grew, the energy
consumed in drawing sawdust, bark
and other waste materials over
miles of ground would be saved.
The portable sawmill was the re-
sult. A small but powerful steam
engine, so compact that, boiler and
all, it could be drawn by four or six
horses along the country roads and
into the edge of almost any forest,
was designed. Once on the ground
it is an easy thing to set up this en-
gine and connect with it the stout
circular saw for which it furnishes
the power. Then presto ! the hill-
side covering is converted into clean
yellow planks, which remain close
by the mill, neatly stacked, until,
seasoned to half their original
weight, they are drawn away to
market. When the portable mill
sees fallen around it all the forces
which stood within its easy range,
it moves on to a new location and
begins another attack.

We read a great deal nowadays
about the destruction of the forests.
We see the hills and mountains lose
half their beauty, and when we drive
along once-time favorite roads we
find, too often, that a large measure
of their attractiveness has disap-
peared. Exponents of the art of
forestry tell us what we ought to do,
in order to repair the losses of the
hillsides, and how to do it; but too
often we read or listen, and look,
and then do nothing more. A tree
which is small enough to 'be trans-
planted with much hope of its living
looks so small in comparison with

" Where once was Grateful Shade "

the giants that have been cut down,
that it seems almost ridiculous to
spend one's time upon it. Then, too,
it is only human for us to put off
for the things of to-day those things
which will chiefly benefit the men
and women of another generation.
"No doubt it would be a good
thing," we say, "this setting out of
forests, but it seems almost vision-
ary."

I have been interested, then, to
find, back in a New Hampshire

"Is now the Blazing Sun

AN EXPERIMENT IN FORESTRY

country town, a practical illustra-
tion of successful forestry, the result
of an experiment begun so long ago
that it may well serve as an encour-
agement as well as an example,
Moreover this was not the mere
fanciful experiment of some wealthy
summer resident, but the work of a
farmer in spare hours of time which
could be taken without interfering
with other work. What this man
did, any New England farmer can
do, to transform acres of land,
which, as one of his neighbors told
me, were, before he began work
upon them, "jest good for nothin'
under the sun only to help hold the
world together."

Twenty- six years ago Mr. Elliot
Wyman of Westmoreland, N. H.,
set out five acres of pasture
land to pine seedlings. Now the
ground is covered with a beautiful
grove of pine trees, the largest of
which are from twelve to fifteen
inches in diameter. Not only is the
grove an ornament to the landscape,
from every point from which it can
be seen, but it has a very definite
material value. In ten years' time
it will be large enough to be cut
for lumber. If the owner cared to
sell it now, he could get a good price
for it, for it is an established princi-
ple in that part of New England
that, at present prices of lumber —
and they are not likely to grow less
—pine land on which the trees have
reached an age of fifteen years in-
creases in value thereafter ten per
cent a year until the timber is ma-
tured.

It is almost useless to argue
against the cutting of the timber on
the hillsides. But is it too much to

ask that when the trees have been
cut, steps be taken to replace them
with a new crop, just as is done
with other crops on any other
ground? When a farmer's field of
oats is ripe you cannot expect him
not to cut it, because of the beauty
which its golden undulations add to
his farm. When his wood lot has
reached an age where the timber will
begin to deteriorate in value if it is
not cut, the farmer can hardly be
expected to spare it for aesthetic
reasons. He should be taught,
though, that for the sake of insuring
the country's water supply, if for no
other reason, the denuded hillside
should be covered with trees again.
If he can be shown that there are
obvious financial reasons for doing
this he will go to work the more
willingly to bring it about. It may
be said, with reason, that if the
ground from which the trees have
been cut foe left alone, Nature will
reclothe it. To a large extent this is
true, but the process can be greatly
stimulated by a little help in the
way of clearing away brush from
promising saplings, thinning out
seedlings where they have come up
too near together, and transplanting
superfluous trees into bare openings.
Even more profitable work than this
can be done, though, in setting out
new forests in bare pasture lands.
In the many years during which lit-
tle thought has been given to replac-
ing the forests, the pasture lands of
New England have increased to an
area which can well be diminished
by turning some part of them back
into woodland again.

The story of Mr. Wyman's experi-
ment in his own words is interesting:

The Edge of the Grove

"I set out these trees twenty-six
years ago. There are between six-
teen hundred and seventeen hun-
dred of them. I never measured the
land they are on, but I've always
reckoned there was nigh on to five
acres of it. I had ploughed the land
one or two years before I set them
out. I think I had potatoes on it
one year, and the year before I set
out the trees I had oats on it.

"I got the trees on a piece of pine
land near by, which one of the
neighbors had just cut over. They
were seedlings, mostly from a foot
to two feet tall. I just pulled them
up and set them out. I did the work
one May, when I could spare the
time from my spring's work. It
took me about a week, if I remember
rightly. Yes, I had to water them
some. I used to do that evenings.
About one tree in ten died, and had
to be set over. That is why some of
the trees are smaller than others.
The ground was not cultivated at all
after the trees were set out, but for
several years after that I used to

mow the ground between the trees
every year in haying time. I had
tried to raise oaks on the same1 piece
of ground, first, and planted a part
of it one fall to red oak acorns, but
the squirrels dug the nuts up, so I
gave that idea up. All things con-
sidered I have made up my mind
that pines are the best kind of trees
to try to raise."

The grove is planted on a very

I SET OUT THESE TREES TWENTY-SIX
YEARS AGO"

AN EXPERIMENT IN FORESTRY

steep hillside. The soil is so sandy
that pasture land here, as steep as
this is. would be of little value. Mr.
Wyman said it possibly might have
been worth ten dollars an acre when
he began on it. Most of his neigh-
bors though, with whom I talked,
thought five dollars an acre a fair
valuation for such land. The trees
are set out with the regularity of the
hills in a cornfield, and are about
twelve feet apart. Standing at one
side of the grove you can look far
down the long aisles which the
brown trunks form. Of course, the
setting out of the trees with this reg-
ularity is not necessary if it is being
done merely as a measure of utility.
This grove is directly beside the
track of the Cheshire division of the
Boston & Maine Railroad, formerly
the Fitchburg, between the stations
of East Westmoreland and West-
moreland Depot. It lies 'below the
track, and no doubt the beauty of
the trees and their regular arrange-
ment have attracted the attention of
passengers who may read this arti-
cle. Mr. Wy man's home, for more
than a quarter of a century, has been
the little red farmhouse near the
grove.

What this man has done, almost
any farmer or his sons might do.
Suppose a boy be given one, two,
three or five acres of land to set out
to trees each year. The work is so
light that a boy ten years old could
do it. If he followed out the process
faithfully each year, when he be-
came of age he would be the owner
of a property which would be the
equivalent of a handsome savings
bank account, and there would be at
least a possibility that he would

have developed an interest in the
farm which would keep him living
on it.

If we acknowledge the reasona-
bleness of the farmer's plea that he
be allowed to cut down the forest
in general, let us call attention all
the more emphatically to one place
where he cuts the trees not only
needlessly but with a lack of fore-
sight which is financial folly. This
he does when he cuts the trees by
the roadsides.

The value of the lumber sawed
from the trees which stand near
enough to the roads to shade them
is infinitesimal when compared with
the damage, the actual money dam-
age, which is being done in the New
England States by the cutting of
these trees. A recent official
computation estimated the money
brought into the state of New
Hampshire every year by the sum-
mer visitors at an amount so large
as to elicit expressions of surprise
from every one. What is true of
New Hampshire is true of almost all
of New England. The people who
come to these states, and leave their
money behind them, come very gen-
erally because they are attracted by
the beauty of the country. That
there is no one element more potent
to attract such summer visitors than
the lovely shaded roads one has only
to watch these visitors in their
drives, or question the stable keep-
ers and bicycle agents to learn.
The farmer's foolish wife that killed
the goose that laid a golden egg
has served for centuries as an ex-
ample of shortsightedness. Are
we too dense to profit by her exam-
ple?

A Bundle of Old Almanacs

By Elizabeth Cumings

TIME has made them of a deep
yellow color, and much
thumbing has left them tat-
tered, and in places torn.
In the older numbers every noun be-
gins with a capital letter, and does
not assume its modern shape save at
the end of words till well into the 19th
century. The earliest in date is, "The
Almanack for the year of our Lord
Christ, 1 761. Being the First Year
after Leap Year, and of the reign of
King George II, ye 34th." In the cen-
ter of the title-page is a wood-cut of
an Indian, standing, and holding in his
outstretched right hand an arrow ap-
parently as big round as a base ball
club. In his left hand is a taut bow,
while an ostrich feather waves grace-
fully over his left ear. The table of
contents is printed upon each side of
the wood cut, and announces, "wherein
is contained the Lunations, Eclipses,
Time of High-Water, Courts Observ-
able, Judgments of the Weather,
&tc."

Every available fraction of an inch
in the pages is crowded with matter.
Three lists of days are given : First is
the old style, which makes our modern
first of January come on the thirteenth
of January; the second list is like the
one we are familiar with ; and the third
is after the Quaker form, each Sun-
day being marked D, and the days fol-
lowing, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. In the next space
are crowded aspects of the planets,

church festivals, times of high tides,
great historical events, dates of Quak-
er meetings for the year, times of sit-
tings of various New England courts,
elections (these are always in large and
peculiar print), judgments of the
weather, and remarks probably sup-
posed by the author to be appropriate
to the season.

The judgments of the weather are
always discreet, allowing the prophet
many loopholes of escape. From the
first of January, to the sixth, is trailed
this, "perhaps cold, but as the planets
are silent about the weather, I do but
guess.'' For the sixteenth, seven-
teenth, and eighteenth, he prophesies,
"Serene and wholesome air." From
the ninth of July to the fourteenth is
this bit, "Improve your season while
you may, to gather in your grain and
hay, for soon there'll be a rainy day."
The year concludes with, "Snow
every other day, if I mistake not."

Here are some of the "appropriate
remarks" : In February, — "Fleecy
Snow now clothes the Wood, and
Cakes of Ice rozvl down the Flood;"
in December, — "The Farmer to full
Bowels invites his Friends, and what
he got with Pain, with Pleasure
spends."

Bushes seem to have been trouble-
some, for in every month save mid-
winter, the farmer is exorted to cut
them, some days being set apart as
particularly lucky. Each page is

A BUNDLE OF OLD ALMANACS

headed by an extract from Pope or
Dryden, and the book concludes with
interest tables calculated for Connec-
ticut bills of various emissions, and a
description of tbe several post roads
leading' from Boston.

In tbe Almanac of 1762 tbe pages
have brief poetical tail-pieces. De-
cember has this,

"Death levels all, the wicked and the just.
Man's but a flower, his end is dust."

In this year political events are
weighing upon the almanac maker's
mind. The tenth of March he says, —
'"Let the Caesars of this Ides of March
beware, for disputes now begun, to
great Heights and Lengths may run."
In October is this, — "Let the Poor be
content with their present Lot, for
when they come to make Bricks with-
out Straw, their Case wdl be worse
yet!" For the General Election held
May 4, at Newport, Rhode Island, he
predicts, "Much Altercation, and some
bloody Noses." The remarks tucked
in with the great variety of miscellane-
ous information, are significant.

"All men are by Nature Equal,
But differ greatly in the Sequel."

"The Public Good men oft pretend,
While private Interest is their End."

A table setting forth the values of
the various sorts of coins then current
in the Colonies, show how vexed the
people were in their medium of ex-
change. The list reads as follows —
guineas, pistoles, moidores, single
Johannes, double loons, English shil-
lings, crowns and milled dollars." On
the last page of this almanac is "A
Page for the Ladies," in which in
stately phrase is sung the praise of
tea.

Sex," he says, "and as the Idea of Love
and the Ladies are conected, I may be al-
lowed to make use of the Word Love. 1
promise them that the Subject which I
treat of, shall be the Object of their Love,
that Shrub or Bush manufactured in the
East Indies, the Decoction of whose Leaf
makes that Liquor which so delights, and
sometimes almost intoxicates, called TEA."

Later he says, "Tea is the Friend of
the Muses, for it brightens the Intel-
lects, and clears the Understanding."
In 1766 the capital letter disappears
from all places save those in which it
is at present in use. The almanac for
this year begins with a long letter ad-
dressed by its author, Nathaniel Ames,
to "The Generous Reader," in which
he says in conclusion,

"I shall always endeavor to publish what
appears to me most useful to the bulk of my
readers, let individuals make what applica-
tion of it they please, and next consider
their innocent diversion, yet I hope I shall
never be so bigoted in my own opinion, as
not to lay open to the conviction of any error
when it is offered in a candid manner, drawn
from cool reason void of passion and preju-
dice. Here I should conclude did I not
share in the general distres of my country-
men, and think it out of character not to
condole with them in their present dis-
tressed circumstances who not only groan,
but almost sink beneath a load of debt, our
merchants continually breaking, no money
to be had even for the most valuable ar-
ticles, and all threatened with ruin without
lenity or assistance of our superiors, yet
so far from this, we are shocked by a new
demand which it is thought by many, all
the current specie among us will not be
able to satisfy ! and after that is gone, then
go houses and lands, then liberties ! And
all the lands that we can get will be in vas-
salage to some haughty Lord, which Heaven
avert !"

Perhaps fearin;
he adds,

he has said too much,

I dedicate the following Lines to the Fai

r "we have the happiness to be under as good

A BUNDLE OF OLD ALMANACS

a king as ever reigned, and a very wise
government, which knows we possess a true
British spirit, and when they come to know
our true circumstances they will certainly
redress our evils, for, as we are a member
of the whole body of the state, our interests
are mutual, and we cannot think of inde-
pendency."

But his discontent and distrust break
forth in the next sentence, for he con-
tinues,

"But above all let us rely on the goodness
of that Power which protected our fore-
fathers, who sought shelter in this howling
wilderness among savage beasts, from more
savage men, that they might quietly worship
Him, who has hitherto, and as long as we
do our duty, will continue, to defend us
from foreign and domestic enemies, and
stamp with eternal infamy and disgrace
those who would oppress and tyrannize
over us."

Such sentences as the following, are
scattered among the weather prophe-
cies, dates of high tides, court notices,
etc., regardless of continuity,

"The sole end of the government is the
happiness of the people."

"How high shall we esteem the man who
wears the manufactures of his own country
in opposition to the ill taste of the age!"
"If each blade would mind his trade,
Each lass and lad in home-soun clad,
Then we might cramp the growth ' of

STAMP."

"When we hear the chains of slavery
rattle, it is time to think of avoiding them.
Liberty is more precious than all gifts."

The numbers for 1767, 70, 73, and 74
are barren of direct political allusions
— but here are some of the "Interest-
ing Remarks" promised on the title-
pages,

"A bean with freedom is better than a
sugar plum in prison. "

"To defend the Christian religion is one
thing, but to knock a man on the head for
being of a different religion is another."

"A child and a fool imagine that twenty
shillings and twenty years can never be
spent."

Here are some of the "weather judg-
ments,"— September, 1767, "will be
warm and pleasant, if not too windy
and drizzling." December's first five
days is to have "dubious weather,"
and in January, 1770, it is predicted,
"that slyboots Jack Frost will skulk in
your cellars, and it will be so cold all
business will cease," but adds the
prophet, "the tongue of Slander is al-
ways limber."

"Six Copper Single" was the price
of these old treasures. In 1775, John
Anderson addressed the public on the
second page of his almanac. After
some general remarks, and bragging
of his success as an almanac-maker,
he continues,

"I had intended to make several altera-
tions for the better in my Almanack, but
the Distresses of my Country, occasioned
by the arbitrary and oppresive Proceedings
of the British Parlement, or Assembly,
having taken too much of my Attention to
engage in such Alteration, I must omit it
till some more convenient Season, and pre-
sent my Readers with the following Pro-
duction, which I trust will not prove in-
ferior to the Labours of any of my Brother
Astronomers in the Almanack Way. In
troublesome Times I know it is expected
by some, that an Almanack maker should
foretell or predict how Affairs will turn
out, etc. Now, tho' I don't think myself
behind the choicest Astronomers or As-
trologers, I pretend not to the Gift of
Prophesy! Yet if the Inhabitants of these
Colonies would follow my advice, I could
put them in the Way to remain the freest
and happiest People under Heaven. My
Advice is first, Live sober, temperate Lives,
be not extravagant in Dress ; wear the Man-
ufactures of your own Country, and stop
all Trade with Great Britain till the Par-
lement shall recognize your Right to carry
on Trade on an equal Footing with the

A BUNDLE OF OLD ALMANACS

People of England, till they withdraw all
their useless Creatures and Toads from this
Country, and till they leave the sole Gov-
ernment of yourselves to yourselves; — I
say. ay till they do this take a firm Reso-
lution to have no further Connexion with
them, and I'll warrant you within twelve
M< nths you will have every Privelege you
desire restored to you, and be courted in the
most endearing Terms. That this may be
the case, and that America may rise to the
Summit of Freedom and Happiness, and
prove the Guardian of Liberty to all the
rest of the World, is the sincere and most
ardent wish of the Public's devoted humble
Servant, — The Authors/''

It will be noted that the old use of
the capital letter is restored in this
book.

On the last page of this almanac is
a list of the exports of Great Britain
to all parts of the world, exclusive of
Bullion for the year 1774. To America
she sent exports to the value of about
£3,600,000. To all other parts of the
world, about £2,000,000. "By which it
appears that America takes off more
of the British manufactures, etc., than
all other parts of the World put to-
gether."

The following is then quoted from
an English writer upon the British
trade.

"As to our foreign traffic, the woolen
Manufacture is still the great foundation
and support of it. To Holland, Germany,
Russia, Turkey, and the East and West
Indies, Spain, Portugal and Ireland we
export vast quantities, for which we
receive the Produce of several coun-
tries in return, and from some places
a balance in Treasure; but the most
profitable Traffic we have, is from our own
Plantations in America, which we furnish
with most of their Clothing and Furniture,
receiving either Treasure, or Merchandize
from thence, which produces Treasure.
And those Colonies, if duly incouraged

would in a short Time, be able to take oft
all the Manufactures we could spare."

From 1775 to 1784, the series is
broken. Perhaps as the house-master
and his sons were in the patriot army,
almanacs were dispensed with as lux-
uries. Curiously enough, from 1784
to 1789, all the notable events of the
Revolution are down in capitals, and
then for several years they are omitted,
even Independence Day, which else-
where is down in extra capitals, is not
noticed.

In the North American Calendar for
1786, "Being the tenth Year of Ameri-
can INDEPENDENCE, Copernicus
Partridge, the Author thus addresses
his readers — using the old method for
the capital letter :

"I am a plain, honest, philosophical, be-
nevelont man, of the Name, and Family of
Partridge celebrated in Europe, in the last
Century, and the beginning of this, for Al-
manacks with the best Calculations, most
virtuous Sentiments, and pithy Sentences of
brilliant Wit. — Indeed Partridge's Alman-
ack there carried the Plume from all
others, as Ame's did formerly in New Eng
land. — The famed Astrologer of our Name,
John Partridge, who quitted this mortal
Scene of Things in 1715 for those starry
Regions with which he was so conversant,
hath his Name enrolled in the List of
eminent Men in the Tablet of Memory. — I
mention this not out of Vanity, but merely
to shew that our Family have been of some
Consequence in the Almanack Way, and
may claim some Attention as well as the
Bickerstaffs. There are Almanack-Makers
of all Characters — Astronomers, Philoso-
phers, Divines, Lawyers, Physicians, and
even Quacks and Empirics, when aided by
Plagiary have published Almanacks, some-
times in their real Names, sometimes in
borrowed ones. Poor Richard's Almanack
so famous in the Southern! States, is said
to have been the Production of that great
American Philosopher, who taught, —

A BUNDLE OF OLD ALMANACS

'To climb the amazing height of Heaven,
And rob the Sky of its tremendous Thun-
der.'
And who by his single Name hath dignified
our Country. As for myself I wish the
Public not to be curious to know whence I
am, or where I live otherwise than as I my-
self inform them. Should I this year meet
with such encouragement as to again ap-
pear in Print, I shall give some Account of
my Nativity, of my philosophic Retirement,
my academic Grove, and how I came to bear
the Name of that great Prussian Philoso-
pher, Copernicus. In the meantime my
Calculations and Predictions are to prove
whether I understand my Business, and
whether my Labours merit the Public Ap-
probation.

Copernicus Partridge
From My academic Grove.
September i, 1785."

Mr. Partridge was of a poetic tem-
per, and carried his taste for the art
even into that dubious business, fore-
telling the weather. In March he

says, —

"Loud winds do blow,

And various sorts of weather congregate
about now."

In November is this, "The cold
North winds now bind the Rivers with
icy Chains."

In the United States Almanack for
1789 poetry again appears at the head
of the pages. This stanza is for Feb-
ruary,—

"Now tyrant Winter with his horrors keen,

Invades the habitations of the poor,

And howling winds pass roughly o'er the

main,
And hail and wind and snow bar too the

door.
Thro' life's crooked journey many storms

there are,
And many boist'rous days appear."

Brief anecdotes with excellent mor-
als occupy the pages opposite the
months, and at the close of the book

is a note upon the amount of money
sent out of the country for sugar,
"when," says the writer, "we might
make all we need from the maple tree.
Sugar is of one species only like water,
and the maple affords an excellent
sugar, a pleasant 'Melassez,' an agree-
able beer, a strong sound wine, and
capital vinegar." Then follow rules
for making these articles. To the
maple beer is added essence of spruce,
and to the wine, yeast, and a little
"magnolio" root. In a foot-note it is
said that maple sugar sold at that time
readily for gd the pound.

"Father Hutchins Revived Alma-
nac for 1794," drops the final k; but it
reappears again and again, for our pro-
genitors had time to spell words at
length. In addition to the usual con-
tents, the title-page says this book con-
tains, "Entertaining Remarks." It
was published in New York City at
No. 37 Hanover Square "opposite The
Bank."

In the almanac for 1795 are some
rules for a "Long Life." Rule eighth
reads as follows, — "At meals eat al-
ternately moist things after dry, fat
after lean, sweet after sour, and cold
after hot, to the end that one may be
corrective of the other."

Rule ninth, — "Having drank more
than once, eat dry bread or biscuit."

Rule twelfth, — "After coming out of
bed, you should never go back to look
out of the window." The new French
calendar is given opposite each month,
"in order to render Greenleaf's alma-
nack more exceedingly useful," says
the compiler, "and to disseminate the
knowledge of the new style of the Re-
public of France, a knowledge which
will be pleasing even to those who do
not expect to reap advantages from it."

A BUNDLE OF OLD ALMANACS

As the Almanac for 1796 contains
the full text of "The Treaty of Amity
and Commerce between his Britanic
Majesty and the United States," it is
probable the general public took great
interest in the document. In this
treaty "His Majesty agrees to witfi-
draw all his troops and garrisons from
all posts and places within the bound-
ary lines assigned by treaty of peace
to the United States. "Evidently it
took His Majesty long to understand
that the war for Independence was
over, and its results must be accepted.
At the foot of the page devoted to the
month of February in 1797 is this note,

"The 22d of this month is observed as the
Birth of His Excellency, GEORGE
WASHINGTON, late President of the
United States."

At the back of this almanac tables of
weights and measures are given, and a
table of United States coins in which
twelve and one half cents are put down
as one eighth of a dollar, and six and
one quarter cents as one sixteenth of
a dollar, and probably they were rep-
resented in the circulation by the sil-
ver shilling and sixpence.

Webster's calendar for 1798 adver-
tises it contains, "a great variety of
new, useful, and entertaining pieces,"
and was sold at Albany where it was
published in "the white house, corner
of State and Pearl Sts." It was also
sold "by all the post-riders in the vi-
cinity." La Rochefoucauld's max-
ims are given upon the margins of this
book, and at the close of it are given
selections from Montesquieus' "Spirit
of the Laws." The poetry heading the
pages of the almanac for 1800 bears
internal evidence of being the work of
an apprentice in the art.

This is for March, —

"Now fierce Boreas rocks the cottage,
And heavy showers in sleet descend,
And pains rheumatic now invade us,
While merrily runs the village mill."

This is for September, —

"Loud Boreus sweeps the billious main
From Nova Zembla's icy shores,
With low'ring sky and beating rain
The equinoxials loudly roars."

In the year 1800 it is probable
"equinoxials" was called "a collective
noun conveying an idea' of unity." The
last of October and the middle of De-
cember of this year were to have
"homely weather," according to the
weather prophet, and as both these
periods were to be preceded by high
winds, the reader can guess for him-
self what sort of weather was foretold.

The almanac for 1803 had a new de-
parture in the shape of wood cuts at
the head of its pages, — and such wood
cuts ! Taurus has the broadest kind of
a grin upon his bovine countenance,
and Leo irresistibly suggests the pho-
tographs of the sun-flower poet, so
beautifully does his flowing mane part
"on the middle of his forehead."

The weather "forecastings" are more
amusing even than usual. This is for
April, from the first to the seventeenth,
inclusive, — "The planets now do not
declare, whether it will be foul or fair ;
but if I may indulge a guess it will be
either more or less, — pleasant for two
days, — about this time." At the close
of the year, he says,

"I shall now conclude the good wishes of
several months with wishing you a happy
new Year, good fires without smoky rooms,
sleigh-rides without turning over, a heavy
purse with a liberal hand, a full table with
a generous heart, and social enjoyment
without party spirit, to honest bankrupts,
open doors with the speedy means of pay-

A BUNDLE OF OLD ALMANACS

ing their debts, and to rogues of every de-
scription, ragged coats with empty pockets."

Here is one of the "interesting ob-
servations" inserted in the page devot-
ed to April, — "Whatever may be a
man's political principles, he will al-
ways pretend that the public good is
his aim."

In a torn fragment sewn to the al-
manac for 1803, doubtless from an al-
manac for 181 1 or 12 is this: —

"Paris, Oneida Co. June 22, 1810.

Female Dexterity.— Miss Tryphosa But-
ler did on the 20th inst., between half-past
four A. M. and forty minutes past 7 P. M.
spin and reel on the common wheel and a
reel of two yards and two inches circumfer-
ence 11 skeins of woolen yarn, having 10
knots of 40 threads each, in each skein, the
whole weighing but two pounds, and of a
superior quality; which may be seen at the
house of the subscriber for whom it was
spun, and who was witness to this extraor-
dinary performance. Ladies out-do this if
you can !

Thaddeus S. M'Connell."

The above challenge induced two
young ladies, Lois and Mariamne,
daughters of Jonathan Nye of North
Braintree, Massachusetts, to try their
skill at the spindle ;

"and in 15 hours they had spun on common
wheels, and reeled, 33 skeins of excellent
woolen yarn of 7 knots of 40 threads each,
which far out-does Miss Butler. Nor was
the spirit of emulation stayed here. A Miss
Sophia Fuller living near Geneva, on the
2d of Aug, spun 130 knots, or 6 and one.
half runs of fine woolen yarn between the
hours of 5 A. M. and 7 P. M. These laud-
able efforts of female industry excited em-
ulation in the other sex, for Erastus
Wheeler 17 years of age of Clinton (N.
Y.) wove in 13 hours 50 and one half yards
of shirting muslin, 1 yard wide, of No. 11,
yarn spun at the Whitesboro cotton fac-
tory."

Let him sigh for the "good old times"

who will, most of us in the face of these
figures will rejoice that machinery has
lifted the question of "wherewithall
we shall be clothed" from the house-
hold.

Rates of postage in the year 18 14
were as follows : —

Single letters composed of one piece
of paper, any distance not exceeding
forty miles, eight cents ; over forty,
and not exceeding ninety, ten cents;
five hundred miles and upwards, twen-
ty-five cents. Newspapers were car-
ried one hundred miles and upwards
for one cent, if within the state.
•Without the state, it was one cent
and a half. Magazines were car-
ried any distance not exceeding fifty
miles for one cent a sheet. For any
distance more than one hundred miles,
two cents per sheet were collected.

Temperance, anti-slavery sentiments,
and pity for dumb beasts have posses-
sion of the almanac for 18 14. No
"pithy sentences of brilliant wit"
twinkle among its calculations of the
places of the planets, no weather-fore-
castings delight the reader; notable
events, even Independence Day are
left out. The Almanac maker was
without doubt a reformer of a pro-
nounced type. The following divided
into paragraphs forms the headpieces
for the first eight months of the
year : —

"Eulogium on Rum.

At a time like the present, when the im-
moderate use of rum, (alias Ardent Spirits),
is making such mighty destruction in our
country; laying prostrate thousands of our
fellow citizens, slaying more by far than the
British aided by the Indians; perhaps it
may not be unseasonable to insert in our
little yearly visitor, the following extract
from the American Museum of 1790, writ-
ten at Burlington 1789.

A BUNDLE OF OLD ALMANACS.

'Dr. Rush gives it as his opinion that
not less than 4.000 people die annually in
the United States from the use of ardent
-pints. In a note of a sermon by Ebenezer
Porter we find at a moderate computation
the spirits consumed in the United States
every year, would load 100,000 wagons,
which in compact order would extend more
than i.eco miles, and the annual expense
of this strong drink to the people, if it were
paid in silver, would exceed 400 tons of
dollars! Where will these things end! If
the inhabitants of this land must pay for a
flood of ardent spirits every year, and, if
what is w^orse. they must drink it, what
are our prospects?' "

"Arise! ye pimpled, tippling race arise!
From every town and village hamlet come!
Show your red noses, and o'er-flowing eyes,
And help your poet chant the praise of rum.
The cordial drop, the morning dram I sing,
The mid-day toddy, and the evening sling.

Hail mighty rum ! and by this general name
I call each species,— whisky, gin, or brandy ;
( The kinds are various, but the effect the

same ;
And so I choose a name that's short and

handy ;
For reader know it takes a deal of time,
To make a crooked word lie smooth in

rhyme. )

Hail mighty rum ! how wonderous is thy

power !
Unwarmed by thee how would our spirits

fail,
When dark December comes, with aspect

sour,
And sharp as razor blows the northern

gale,
And yet thou art grateful in that sultry

day,
When raging Sirius darts his fervid ray.

Hail mighty rum! to thee the wretched fly;
And find a sweet oblivion to their woes:
Lock'd in thy arms, as in the grave they

lie-
Forget their kindred and forgive their foes —
And Lethe's stream, (so much extolled by

some,
In ancient times) I shrewdly guess, was

rum.

Hail mighty rum ! what can thy power with-
stand !
E'en lordly reason flies thy dreadful face;
And health and joy and all the lovely band
Of social virtues shun thy dwelling place ;
(For in whatever place it rears its throne,
Like Turkish monarchs, rum must rule
alone.)"

Over the month of September is be-
gun, "The Negroe's Prayer," which
starts out in this fashion,

"Lord if thou dost with equal eye,

See all the sons of Adam die ;

Why dost thou hide thy face from slaves?

Consigned by fate to serve the knaves."

From the verses that follow, it is
evident that "the institution," was in
that time as "peculiar" as when it was
painted by Mrs. Stowe. But the al-
manac maker's indignation has not
found full expression in one poem.
Lie quotes a long essay upon slavery
from "The Commercial Advertiser,"
then comes a long poem which closes
as follows, —

"I speak to freemen. Freemen then behold,
A man by Americans snar'd, and seiz'd, and

sold!
O sons of Freedom equalize your laws,
Be all consistent, plead the Negroes cause;
That all the nations in your code may see
Columbia's negroes, like Columbians,

FREE."

On the next page are still more
verses upon what to Friend Samuel
Wood was a shame and as a burning to
his spirit. The piece is called "The
Negro," and this is the concluding
verse, —

"I love Dinah — she love me;
We had little children three;
Dinah's sold, and we must part —
O, it breaks poor Sambo's heart !
White man talk of Liberty.! Why not Ne-
gro too be free !"

A kneeling African, naked save for

A BUNDLE OF OLD ALMANACS

the chains binding his hands together,
heads another appeal for the slave, and
there are two pages more of verses up-
on his condition, but Friend Samuel
did not allow his sympathies to cloud
his literary tastes, or cause him to ne-
glect Southern talent, for he gives at
the close of his book some "Lines"
written by George Tucker, "Of Vir-
ginia,"

"Days of my youth ! ye have glided away ;
Hairs of my youth ! ye are frosted and grey ;
Eyes of my youth ! your keen sight is no

more;
Cheeks of my youth ! ye are furrowed all

o'er;
Strength of my youth ! all your vigor is

gone;
Thoughts of my youth! your gay visions

are flown !"

Jn the next verse Mr. Tucker "of
Virginia" making a virtue of necessity,
declares himself contented that his
"days," "hairs," "eyes," etc., should be
in a state more or. less decayed. The
piece closes with much sentiment and
piety as becomes a gentleman and a
poet "of Virginia."

In the Columbian Calendar for the
year of our Lord 1817 weather predic-
tions reappear, and in January the
reader is told, to look out for "a flight
of snow" ; in February he is asked per-
suasively, "why not a smart thaw, —
about this time ?" At the head of each
page is a verse upon some grave sub-
ject, always of four lines. Here is one
upon Prudence almost modern in its
scientific casting of blame upon "the
constitution," (of course The Consti-
tution which is the bulwark of our
Institutions, and was drawn up by
Thomas Jefferson, was not meant) ;
but the last line reads to me somewhat
blindly- The unbiased public can judge.

"PRUDENCE.

In human breasts we various passions find,
To regulate them is an act of mind ;
From constitutions vice and virtues rise,
But Prudence marks the foolish and the
wise."

"An Alphabetical list of the Towns
in the State of New York, with a cor-
rect statement of the Votes for Gov-
ernor,— (April, 18 1 6,)" is given in the
last pages of this book, with other curi-
ous information, as a list of the names
of the officers of The Grand Royal
Arch Chapter of the State of New
York. The names of the officers of
the medical society of Rensselaer
County, the Bible society of Rensselaer
County, and of the Troy Mechanic
Humane Association. There are hints
of budding industries in these old
pages smelling of mould and rose
leaves. In 1766 is the following, — "All
persons who incline to encourage the
paper manufacture, are requested to
save their old cotton and linen rags, for
which they will receive a good price at
the paper-mill at Milton (Mass.)" In
1770 this mill is declared a great sav-
ing to the Province, and the people are
exhorted to hang up bags in every
room, that bits that would otherwise
be swept out of doors or be burned,
might be saved.

The earlier almanacs were serious
works addressed to the male under-
standing, and the first items were on
matters in which men take most inter-
est,— as, how to raise early potatoes,
and how to build chimneys that will not
smoke. Here is a remedy for want of
appetite, dated 1773, — "Drink camo-
mile tea every day an hour before din-
ner, or take ten drops of acid elixir of
vitriol in a glass of water about two
hours before or about two hours after

A BUNDLE OF OLD ALMANACS

dinner. A gentle puke should preceed
the use of these remedies." Here also
is a en re for baldness, which our
fathers however bald, did not I think
try in fly time, "Rub the part morning
and evening; with onions till it is red,
and rub it afterwards with honey."
The date is 1797.

Extracts from sermons, descriptions
of death bed scenes, and speculations
upon the end of the world are frequent,
but fun is present also, heavy fun, but
unmistakable. In 1800 the following
appears : —

"Rund avay, or sdolen or was sdrayed,
mine plack horse apout fourteen oder fif-
teen hands six inches high. He has peen
cot four plack legs, two pehint, and two pe-
fore — and he has plack all ofer his body
aber he has cot some vite spots pon his
pack, vere de skin vas rub off put I creased
'em, and now de vite spots is all plack
?srain. He drots, and kanters, and bases,
and zometimes he valks, and ven he valks
all his legs and veets coes on one after an-
oder. He ish cot two eyes pon his head.
Von ish put out, and toder ish pon de side
of his head, and ven you co to de oder side
of him, he not see you. He has cot a long
tail vat hang down pehint, put I cut it off
de oder tay, now it ish not so long as it
vas. He ish shod oil arout, put his pehint
shoes corned off, and now he has only coi
shoes pefore. He holdts up his head, and
looks lively, and ven he peen fritten, he
jomps arount like efferyting in de vorld.
He vill rit mit a sattle, or a share, or a
kart, or he vill co py himself mitout nopody
put a pag on his pack mit a poy in it. He
ish not very oldt, and his head ven he valks
or runs coes pefore, and his tail stays pe-
hint— only ven he gits mat, and turns
arount and den zometimes his tail comes
first. Whoefer vill pring him pack shall pay
five tollar rewart, and if he prings pack de
vol sdole him, he shall pay pesides

dwenty tollar, and ax no quessions. (Signed)
Slauken Vonderlinder."

About the same time Sebastian
Soapsuds advertises that he will dis-
pose of his whole stock at public auc-
tion, "which/' supposed to relate to
stock,

"consists of the following articles of sta-
tionary and medicine, — Gridirons, tomb-
stones, mustard, load-stones, raw-hides,
powder-horns, ear-bells, and pin-cushions,
and many other articles of saddlery by the
piece or by the yard, among which are
pickled walnuts, grape-shot, Dutch cheese,
gin cases, salt-shad, and Indian corn to-
gether with an elegant assortment of gen-
tleman's apparel and table furniture, con-
sisting of hen's eggs, hair wigs, butter milk,
iron spoons, mill saws, and ink powder 01
various sorts, with or without trimmings
or buttons, together with many other cor-
dials, as white lead, screech-owls, frying-
pans, wire traps, and flying squirrels."

The nonsense continues for half a
page or more and concludes thus,

"Patrons of the work will be furnished
with a complete history of the family, in a
perspective view, among which is a superb
portrait of an Irish potato, set in a bee-hive,
and glazed with Dutch blankets, the frame
being of green coperas, and gilt of black
pepper, to which place the woman is now
removed, where sewing, knitting, and the
making of shirts is done by steam. Like-
wise cassimere watches in mahogany cases,
and pastures for horses by the week or hour.
Salmon Gundy Auctioneer."

It is curious to note that what the
writer considered the impossible —
sewing, knitting, and shirt-making by
steam — has, in a way, come to be the
prevailing method of carrying on these
industries.

Present Appearance

The House of the Four Chimneys

By Garret Van Arkel

IN the month of December, 1832,
Washington Irving and his
friend, Martin Van Buren, took
a drive together through Eng-
lish country districts. They posted
in an open carriage, for the weather
was mild. Mr. Van Buren had lately
presented his credentials as American
minister at the Court of Saint James.
Irving had been secretary of the for-
mer legation and had held over an in-
terim as charge d' affairs. He was
glad enough to be relieved of the re-
sponsibility, and was able to initiate
the new ambassador into the ways of
the country with a light heart. In a

letter from Newstead Abbey, Janu-
ary 20, 1833, he wrote: "Upward of a
month since, I left London with Mr.
Van Buren and his son on a tour to
show them some interesting places in
the interior and to give them an idea
of English country life and the festiv-
ities of an old-fashioned English
Christmas." The ground was already
familiar to Irving. Wherever fortune
or fancy led him — on the shores of the
Thames or the Tweed, the Guadal-
quiver or the Hudson — he indulged
his inclination to seek out those
quaint or historic by-paths to which
he has imparted a charm often sur-

THE HOUSE OF THE FOUR CHIMNEYS

passing that of their original associa-
tions. For his sketches of Abbots-
ford, of Newstead and of Annesley,
the scene of the ill-fated first love of
Lord Byron, we are indebted to these
various meanderings in the British
border region.

It may have been this particular
pilgrimage and the desire to repeat
on American soil the sentimental
journey they had made in an older
land, that induced Irving and Van
Buren, who by the following summer
had both returned home, to take such
another long drive down the banks
of the Hudson. Irving wrote to his
brother Peter, October 28, 1833: "I
have been moving about almost in-
cessantly during the summer and au-
tumn, visiting old scenes on the Hud-
son. I made a delightful journey with
Mr. Van Buren in an open carriage
from Kinderhook to Poughkeepsie,
then crossing the river to the country
about the foot of the Catskill Moun-
tains and so from Esopus, by Goshen,
Haverstraw, Tappan, Hackensack, to
Communipaw, — an expedition which
took two weeks to complete, in the
course of which we visited curious old
Dutch places and Dutch families."

One of these Dutch families be-
longed to the sturdy clan of Van
Home in old Communipaw. They
dwelt by the shore in a long low house
whose stone front to-day looks out
upon the bedraggled robed Goddess
of Liberty as, with averted face, she
brandishes aloft her right arm to ad-
minister chastisement to some infant
she is holding in her left. Irving's
call upon these worthy people must
have been mutually impressive, for it
lives among the traditions of their de-
scendants to this day, while one of

his entertaining sketches in the
Knickerbocker vein is reasonably at-
tributable to the visit.

The Van Homes, on their side, re-
member how much annoyed they
were, amid the awe and solemnity of
entertaining these illustrious guests,
when a certain neighbor's household
— notorious for intruding itself where
it was not wanted — came to help en-
tertain. This household brought
with it one of its male offspring for
whom it claimed recognition on the
ground that he was a namesake of
Mr. Van Buren. With some difficulty
Vran Buren and Irving succeeded in
scraping up between them a five dollar
gold piece in return for the graceful
compliment.

It is related that in after years
Irving's venerable host, John Van
Home, was listening to the "Knicker-
bocker History of New York" read
aloud by his children or grandchil-
dren. At last they came to the hu-
morous, and not too flattering, de-
scriptions of Dutch family customs,
such as that of nibbling the lump of
sugar suspended over the table. This
was too much for old Mr. Van Home.
He would hear no more of it, he ex-
claimed. The Dutch peoplewere not
heathen, after all! To think that Mr.
Irving, whom he had treated with so
much deference and taken so much
trouble to entertain, should have
heaped such insult upon them ! He
wanted nothing further to do with
Mr. Irving!

So much for the Van Homes' side
of the case and the impression made
upon them by Irving. Now let us
consider what he thought of them,
and what he had to say about them.
The old Dutch town of Communipaw

Before the Fire

was to Irving a favorite literary
theme, and among its antiquities the
hereditary domicile of the Van
Homes is honored with an heroic es-
say like the Old World castles of
Newstead or the Alhambra. This ap-
peared in the guise of a letter to the
editor of the Knickerbocker Magazine,
by one Hermanus Vanderdonk, and
was printed under the caption,
"Communipaw." Its subject is,
"The House of the Four Chimneys."
Like the History of New York bv
the same author, the sketch is quasi-
historical with emphasis on the
quasi. The age of the mansion is
idealized by a hundred and thirty or
forty years and many things are
gravely asserted to have happened
there which must be ascribed to a
superstitious imagination.

The ancient and renowned village
of Communipaw, wrote Irving, ac-
cording to the venerable Dedrich, and
to equally veracious tradition, was the
spot where our ever-to-be-lamented
Dutch progenitors planted their
standard and cast the seeds of em-
pire, and from whence subsequently
sailed the memorable expedition
under Oloffe the Dreamer which
landed on the opposite island of Man-
hattan and founded the present city of
New York, the city of dreams and
speculations. Communipaw might,
therefore, truly be called the parent of
New York. To the narrator this
much-riieglected village was one of the
most remarkable places in the coun-
try from the fact that so small a town
could have produced so great a city.
Looking down from the Bergen

THE HOUSE OF THE FOUR CHIMNEYS

Heights to where the hamlet lay mod-
estly nestled among its cabbage gar-
dens, while the big city stretched far
and wide on the opposite shore, it
seemed like some simple-hearted hen
that had unwittingly hatched out a
long-legged turkey. Here everything
remained as it had been in the days of
Oloffe the Dreamer, Walter the
Doubter and other worthies of the
Golden Age ; the same broad-
brimmed hats and broad-bottomed
breeches, the same knee buckles and
shoe buckles, the same close-quilted
caps and linsey-woolsey short gowns
and petticoats, the same implements
and utensils and forms and fashions.
It stood to the ancient Province of the
Xew Netherlands and the classic era
of the Dutch dynasty what Hercu-
laneum and Pompeii are to ancient
Rome and the glorious days of the
Empire.

At the time New Amsterdam was
invaded and conquered by the British
foes, runs the narrative, a great dis-
persion took place among the Dutch
inhabitants. One stanch, uncon-
querable band determined to keep to-
gether and preserve themselves like
seed-corn forthe future fructification
and perpetuity of the Knickerbocker
race. Under the guidance of one
Garret Van Home, a gigantic Dutch-
man, they retreated across the bay
and buried themselves among the
marshes of ancient Pavonia as did
the followers of Pelayo among
the mountains of Asturias when
Spain was overrun by its Arabian
invaders. The gallant Van Home
sel up his standard at Communi-
paw and invited all those to rally
under it who were true Netherland-
ers at heart. Strict non-intercourse

was observed with the captured
city ; not a boat ever crossed to
it. Every man was sworn to wear his
hat, cut his coat, build his house and
harness his horses exactly as his
father had done before him, and to
permit nothing but the Dutch lan-
guage to be spoken in his household.
As a citadel for the place and a
stronghold for the preservation of
everything Dutch, Van Home
erected a lordly mansion with a
chimney perched on every corner,
which thence derived the name of
"The House of the Four Chimneys.'"

It was here that the valiant Van
Home and his compeers would sit for
hours and days together, smoking
their pipes, holding councils of war,
watching the growing city across the
bay with groans in spirit whenever
they saw a new house erected or ship
launched, and persuading themselves
that Admiral Van Tromp would one
day or other arrive to sweep out the
invaders with the broom which he
carried at his masthead. Years
rolled by and Van Tromp never came,
but still they kept on smoking and
smoking and watching and watching
and turning the same few thoughts
over in a perpetual circle, which is
called deliberation, while they grew
poorer and poorer until they had
hardly the wherewithal to maintain
their pipes in fuel.

Among the precious relics of New
Amsterdam transferred at the time of
the exile to the House of the Four
Chimneys, were the capacious hat of
Walter the Doubter and the shoe with
which Peter the Headstrong kicked
his pusillanimous councillors down-
stairs. One day an ignorant house-
wife swept these out of doors. The

Beelitje Van Horne's Silver Service

hat, falling upon a stercoraceous heap
of compost began to vegetate and de-
veloped into a prodigious cabbage
and gave rise to the species known as
Governor's Head, which became the
glory of Communipaw. The shoe,
rolling into the bay, gathered barna-
cles, turned into an oyster and prop-
agated the breed called Governor's
Foot. These miracles, which had
been wrought through the agency of
the blessed Saint Nicholas, were the
pecuniary salvation of Communipaw,
yet eventually they came very neat
causing its downfall. Cabbages and
oysters among the Communipaw
Dutchmen had the same effect as
gold and diamonds among those in
South Africa. Commercial exigencies
rubbed off some of the maidenly
bloom of their exclusiveness. At last
matters got to the point where a dar-
ing company of Yankee realty project-
ors landed before the village, stopped
the honest burghers on the public
highway and endeavored to bargain
them out of their hereditary acres ;
displayed lithographic maps in which
their cabbage gardens were laid out
in town lots, their oyster parks into

docks and quays, and even the House
of the Four Chimneys was meta-
morphosed into a bank which was
to enrich the whole neighborhood
with paper money. Fortunately the
doughty Van Homes rallied the
worthy burghers just as they were on
the .point of capitulating and put the
Uitlanders to rout. So the good peo-
ple continued to cultivate their cab-
bages and raise their oysters and,
knowing nothing of banks, to treasure
up their money in stocking feet or at
the bottom of the family chest, or
buried in iron pots, as their fathers
had done.

"As to the House of the Four
Chimneys," writes Irving, "it still re-
mains in the great and tall family of
the Van Homes. Here are to be seen
ancient Dutch corner cupboards,
chests of drawers and massive clothes-
presses, quaintly carved and carefully
waxed and polished ; together with
divers thick blackletter volumes with
brass clasps, printed of yore in Ley-
den and Amsterdam and handed
down from generation to generation
in the family, but never read. In this
house the primitive Dutch holidays of

THE HOUSE OF THE FOUR CHIMNEYS

Aeltje Van Horne's Trunk, Plates and
Clothes-press

Paas and Pinxter are faithfully kept
up. Of late the pretentious mansion
has begun to give signs of decay.
Some have attributed this to the visits
made by the young people to the city
and to their bringing thence various
modern fashions, and to their neglect
of the Dutch language, which is grad-
ually being confined to the older per-
sons in the community. The house,
too, was greatly shaken by high winds
during the prevalence of the specula-
tion mania, especially at the time of
the landing of the Yankees. Seeing
how mysteriously the fate of Com-
munipaw is identified with this vener-
able mansion, we cannot wonder that
the older and wiser heads of the com-
munity should be filled with dismay
whenever a brick is toppled down
from one of the chimneys or a
weathercock is blown off from a gable
end. Long may the horn of the Van
Homes continue to be exalted in the
land! Tall as they are, may their

shadows never be less! May the
House of the Four Chimneys remain
for ages the citadel of Communipaw
and the smoke of its four chimneys
continue to ascend, a sweet-smelling
incense to the nose of Saint Nicho-
las!"

The desire thus fervently expressed
by Irving has been fulfilled — but with
qualifications. Van Homes, a goodly
number, still dwell in Communipaw
and have spread throughout the terri-
tory of the New Netherlands and
even beyond its borders. Yet the
House of the Four Chimneys they no
longer inhabit. A few years ago that
edifice was ignominiously degraded
into a foundry, which so incensed its
tutelary saint that he withdrew his
presence and allowed a fire to come
and consume its gable roof. Some
conscienceless Yankee or scalawag
Irishman then replaced this by a
second story and converted the build-
ing into a tenement house. But the
stone front fagade is still unaltered,
and the big metal figures 1804 (or
1801?), denoting the year when ac-
tually it was built, are still in evidence.
One of the photographs reproduced
here was taken before the fire and
shows the house as it was in Irving's
time, aside from the addition of the
two wings — clipped unequally to pre-
vent its rising out of its monotonous
pen, Communipaw, and flying across
the bay to alight somewhere in the in-
teresting city toward which it is ever
casting a sidelong glance. Another
view represents the house as it is to-
day.

Besides the sketch entitled "Com-
munipaw," a synopsis of which has
been given, there are further ties of
association which bind Irving to the

Oil Painting from the House of the Four Chimneys

House of the Four Chimneys. A sub-
sequent letter in continuation of the
theme, and entitled "The Revolt of
the Cocked Hats," was published in
the Knickerbocker Magazine. Os-
tensibly it was a reply to the first, but
evidently it was written by Irving, as
it has since been printed with the for-
mer one, in a collected edition of his
works. Moreover, "Gibbet Island,"
which has been immortalized in an-
other of Irving's tales, is situated just
off shore from the house. The Count
Van Horn, about whom Irving has
written, was not a Communipaw Van
Home.

The Van Home homestead is not
altogether dependent upon fiction,
however, for its reminiscent interests.
In Revolutionary days when a still
older house stood on or near the site of
the present, the family, it is said, was
one of only fourteen in the region
who approved the revolt of the Col-
onies. When Loyalist refugees were

heard prowling around at night, the
household candle would quickly be
thrust up a chimney to make all
within appear dark. The barn door
was used as a means of signalling the
presence or absence of the enemy to
friends who might be preparing to
land or cross from New York.

The discovery of what was perhaps
the first clew to Arnold's treason at
West Point is closely connected with
the history of the Van Home family.
Through several successive genera-
tions they have intermarried with the
Van Ripers, or Van Reypens, who
lived on the neighboring Bergen hill.
Beelitje Van Home (nee Van Riper),
who was the mother of Irving's host,
had a sister who was accustomed to
carry provisions to the American
prisoners in New York, and became
somewhat crippled in so doing. On
one occasion, when she had crossed
the river for this or for marketing
purposes, she stopped at a tavern (ac-

STARVED LOVE

cording to the best authority "Black
Sam's" or "Fraunce's" which is still
standing on Broad Street), and
learned from the keeper, who was an
American sympathizer, that he had
heard some British officers talking
about a conspiracy in the American
camp. She returned home and in-
formed her brother, Daniel Van
Riper, who carried the news to Gen-
eral Wayne at Hackensack, who for-
warded it to Washington. Van
Riper was offered a pecuniary reward
for his services, but refused it, asking
only for protection if captured by the
British. He was promised that in
such an event the best officer that
could be taken should be held against
him. Some of these facts have been
transferred from family tradition to
local histories, but they have not thus
far found their way into the general
history of Arnold's treason.

The relics shown in the accom-
panying illustrations pertain to the

early history of those closely con-
nected families. The silver service
bears the monogram of Beelitje above
referred to. The curious oil painting
of a hunting scene used to hang in her
apartment in the House of the Four
Chimneys. The hair trunk is studded
in brass nails with the initials of her
daughter, Aeltje Van Home, who
married back into the Van Reypen
family. From the House of the
Four Chimneys are reputed to have
come the dishes and the ancient
clothes-press or kitchen "potten-bank,"
which is said to carry the scars
of war, but the musket leaning
against it is one bought by Daniel
Van Riper of a British soldier at the
time of the evacuation. The dowager
Beelitje Van Home died in 1826, and
it was probably soon after her death
that most of these effects were trans-
ferred to the Van Reypen house,
where they have remained until the
present time.

Starved Love

By Theodosia Garrison

OH, it takes Love so long to die !
In my heart's chamber cold and dim
Where rusted dreams and longings lie,
There did I prison him.

No word of comfort will I give
Nor any drink of tender tears.

How therefore can he live and live
So many, many years !

Still he laments his woe and wrong,
And still I sicken at his cry.

Now who had thought it took so long
For a starved Love to die !

$*tili**rt»v*i

Ball Game with Groton

Southborough

By Martha E. D. White

iHE town of Southborough
was taken from the
ancient town of Marlbor-
ough and derived its
name from the circumftance of its
lying about fouth from that town."
This is the brief record of the origin
of Southborough, set down in the
earliest History of Worcester Coun-
ty. The chronicler, for he can hardly
be called historian, the Rev. Peter
Whitney, found little to warrant an
extended account of the struggles
and triumphs of pioneer life there.
No Indian massacres, no crimes, no
witchcraft, nothing supernatural ; but
instead, "her people were induftrious
and wealthy in general and hofpita-
ble and peaceable." It may not be
fanciful to see in this statement of
peace and plenty in 1793, the portent

of Southborough 's future ; those
causes that have led to the consecra-
tion of this lovely village to the best
ends of life. Comfort without luxury,
beauty without artificiality, hospital-
ity without ostentation, have pre-
served the purity and ideality of early-
democratic dignity and simplicity in
a marked degree, and Southbor-
ough's peaceful past has merged into
her useful and dignified present.
With her hills and valleys, flashes
of water and masses of trees, man
could hardly have despoiled her of
her beauty, but the intelligent hand
has done much to enhance it. South-
borough's first artistic triumph was
when a committee, formed of wise
men from Westborough and Marl-
borough, decided that the meeting-
house should be placed on the sum-

SOUTHBOROUGH

Top of Holy Hill

mit of the new town's dominating
hill. "Holy Hill" it was named, and
"Holy Hill" it has remained, pano-
plied in the beauty and picturesque-
ness so peculiar to New Eng-
land's landscape. From its top the
roads wind down, curving sinuously
through the varied groups of trees of
every size and shape, giving at every
point a new vision of changing
beauty. Other hills present them-
selves, Breakneck, Wolf-pen and
Mount Vickory, conveying in their
names a sense of something remotely
dreadful and delightful. "No prettier
road has its flowers gathered in sum-
mer by children's fingers, and its
stones piled by them into walls and
causeways, and bridges and houses."
Nor has any been made more safe

and easy, for Nature, intelli-
gence and civic pride have
combined to keep the roadside
beautiful and the roadbed
smooth and hard.

The people who settled
Marlborough must have been
of an expansive disposition
for, notwithstanding their de-
pletion from Indian massa-
cres and war, they covered at
an early date, at considerable
distance from each other, the
whole six miles square of the
Whipsufreradge Grant. The
territory to become Southbor-
ough had been discovered to
be excellent pasture lands.
There the "Cow Commons"
were located and there event-
ually grew up a little settle-
ment known by that name and
as "Stony Brook."

As early as 1720 the settlers
of these localities discovered
that "Divine Providence which ap-
points the bounds and habitations
of all men hath so ordered our
lots or at least most of us that we
are at such a distance from the
place of Public Worship that our-
selves but especially our aged and
infirm together with our women
and little ones cannot comfortably
endure the necessary travel that
they are forced unto for the at-
taining an opportunity at the place
of Public Worship." The inconven-
ience set forth in this quaint petition
was generously recognized by Marl-
borough, and in due season, "com-
passionated" by the General Court.
In 1727 Southborough was incor-
porated.

The first town meeting brought

St. Mark's Church

together the representatives of about
fifty families who organized the usual
elaborate government, and appointed
half the men of the township to
office. One speculates upon the pos-
sible duties of two tythingmen (and
no meeting-house), two "hog reeves"
and a ''clerk of the market." Other
acts of the early town meetings pro-
vide for the building of the meeting-
house, that should have "all things
for decency and comfort as near as
May be," and procuring a "minister
of good conversation." Such a minis-
ter was found in 1730 in the Rev.
Nathan Stone. His settlement was
magnificent for the times, being $400
and 30 cords of wood. He enjoyed a
harmonious pastorate for fifty-one
years. "During that time," writes

Mr. Parkman, "it is not recorded
that anything special occurred."
What a season of tranquil growth
this silence of history leaves to our
imagination!

The ten years succeeding Mr.
Stone's death were years of doubt
and trouble. For some reason no
minister was settled. The Rev.
Samuel Sumner finally accepted a
call but was soon "dismissed agree-
ably to his request." He was fol-
lowed by the Rev. Jeroboam Parker,
a native of Southborough, whose
long pastorate witnessed and doubt-
less hastened the many ecclesiastical
changes that were soon making his-
tory of a lively character. "Priest"
Parker was a man of commanding
presence. His height and personal

Burnett Mansion Holse

dignity gave him an austere appear-
ance that commanded the reverence
and almost awe of his flock. When
he ascended, with great delibera-
tion, the winding stairs to his pulpit,
it was as though Jove had thun-
dered. At his presence in the school-
room, teacher and children alike
stood in profound courtesy until he
was seated.

Being a scholar and a thoughtful
man, Priest Parker was abreast of the
movement toward Unitarianism that
swept, at the beginning of the last
century, through the established
Puritan churches. Gradually he re-
laxed the rigid customs of a more
exacting piety and his sermons par-
took of the new liberalism. The
spiritual defection of the minister, as
it was regarded by a portion of his
congregation, precipitated its divi-
ion.

Bad feeling was engendered.

"Immorality sat with impudent face
in the pews" and scoffed at the fac-
tion desiring to hear "a more aggres-
sive piety." Such injustice and im-
piety could not be borne, and the
rebellious party withdrew in 1830 to
establish the Pilgrim Evangelical
Society. Unitarianism was preached
in the first meeting-house until 1857.
At that time the followers of the
liberal faith, weary of well doing, sold
their property to the Pilgrim Society.
The Protestant Episcopal Church
wras established in Southborough
early in the sixties. For some years
services were conducted in the old
stone mill. Eventually St. Mark's,
a quaintly beautiful stone church, the
gift of Mr. Joseph Burnett, was built
on Holy Hill. Several able men have
been rectors here: among others the
Rev. Waldo Burnett, son of the
donor. The Baptist Church and the

SOUTHBOROUGH

Catholic have been other results of
Southborough's spiritual needs.

In military spirit the pioneers of
New England were as aggressive as
they were earnest in the establish-
ment of religious institutions. The
men who settled Southborough were
not ignorant of Indian warfare, for
Marlborough had suffered much from
Indian raids during King Philip's
War and at the time of the sacking of
Medfield and Deerfield. The alarms
occasioned by these events had not
subsided at the founding of the new
town, and in consequence three garri-
son houses were established within
its limits. There is no evidence that
they were ever needed, but imminent
danger kept the people in training, so
that at all times Southborough seems
to have been possessed of immediately
available military resources. In 1756
Captain John Taplin led an expedi-
tion to Crown Point composed of
two score of troopers. Throughout
the war with the French this valiant
service was continued. The cause of
the Revolution was heartily espoused.
An agreement covering the many
points of dispute between the colo-
nies and England was signed by
every male citizen either voluntarily,
or, as in one recorded instance, in
obedience to the ''will of the body."
The call "To arms!" on the 19th
of April received ready response. Be-
fore nightfall the "minutemen,"
under command of Captain, after-
wards Major, Josiah Fay, were in
Lexington to find the battle already
a part of history. During the entire
war Southborough rendered efficient,
loyal and prompt service. She en-
listed many men, and suffered much
not only from the loss of able-bodied

workers, but from the depreciated
currency. At the close of the war the
town experienced its one period of
want. Unable to pay its state tax,
harassed and depressed 'by the out-
look, the people were actively in
sympathy with Shays's Rebellion.
Fortunately the prompt action of the
state prevented any calamitous re-
sults and Southborough returned to
her former allegiance. In 1861 it was
voted unanimously "that the town is
ready to respond to the proclamation
of the President with every able-
bodied citizen and every dollar if
necessary." This was no idle boast
as the event proved ; for during our
Civil War 219 men enlisted, this
number being 33 more than enough
to fill her quota. Of these men 17
died in service, and in their memory
the citizens have erected a suitable
monument.

One's estimate of Southborough
must be very high, if there is truth in
Emerson's "A community, like a
man, is entitled to> be judged by its
best." The superlative is continually
appearing to qualify one's judgment
of her life. And it appears with great-
est frequency when one judges the
character of her citizens, for South-
borough's human best is very good
indeed. The pioneer citizens were
men of firmness, sagacity and tem-
perance. They took an intelligent
interest in the larger affairs of the
country and were able to indicate
with force and clearness any policy
they wished to pursue. Brigham,
Fay, Ward, Johnson, Amsden and
Bellows are the names of some who
rendered civic and military services
and were conspicuous in the first
century of the town's history. From

St. Mark's School and Chapel

the early Fays have descended a
number of men that, either from their
benefactions or their political ascend-
ency, are particularly regarded in
Southborough. Mr. Francis B- Fay
represented the town in the General
Court three times, was state senator
from Worcester County and a mem-
ber of the House of Representatives
of the United States. During the
Civil War he rose from a private to
the rank of colonel. The Fay Library
is due to< his generous gift of money
for its establishment.

The family to leave the most abid-
ing impression, and not alone on
Southborough — for through their
work in science and for education the
whole country has been enriched — is
the Burnett family. When Commis-
sioner Price founded his ideal colony
in Hopkintors, he sent to England
and invited as settlers various well-
to-do farmers, men of sterling charac-
ter and sterling worth. One of the
men who responded to this invitation
was John Burnett, the founder of the
family in New England. A grandson,

Charles, made an interesting and sig-
nificant marriage. When General
Lafayette came to this country he
had in his suite his physician, Dr.
Matthieu, a savant of Paris, who> was
accompanied by his wife and daugh-
ters. Charles Burnett married one
of the latter, and the curious in hered-
ity can trace to this source the love
for scientific investigation which has
characterized subsequent generations
of Burnetts. On the occasion of
Lafayette's last tour of this country,
he made Southborough the scene of
one of his memorable visits in order
to pay his respects to Mrs. Burnett.
Dr. Charles Burnett and Dr. Joel
Burnett, sons of this Anglo-French
marriage, settled in Southborough.

Dr. Joel Burnett was very active in
the intellectual and civic life of the
town. He helped to organize the local
Lyceum and always took part in the
debates. The preamble to the consti-
tution of this society is an interesting
document and doubtless was the
work of Dr. Burnett, who was one of
the committee for its composition:

SOUTHBOROUGH

The High School, Southborough

'"The diffusion of moral intelligence
and scientific research, upon the
exalted principles of philanthropy, is,
or ought to be, the anxious desire of
every heart devoted to wisdom, love
and virtue, to instruct and enlighten
the illiterate, for the promotion of
useful knowledge, to stimulate the
virtuous and reclaim the vicious; in
fine, to soften the passions and
ameliorate the condition of the pres-
ent and future generations, cannot
fail to be a pleasing task to him who
is the noblest work of God!" This
Lyceum, grounded in such princi-
ples, discussed many subjects practi-
cal and theoretic: "Would a railroad
from Boston to Albany, passing
through this town, be advantageous
to this vicinity?" in one extreme and
"Are mankind free agents?" in the
other. It is difficult to measure the
educational value of the old Lyceum,
it would not be easy to overestimate
it. That such men as Dr. Burnett
gave to it so much consideration is a
tolerably accurate gauge of its worth
to a community. Dr. Joel Burnett
served the town in various civic

capacities and prac-
tised his profession
in a manner to win
the respect of the
medical fraternity.
He also received
boys into his home
and, with the help
of his daughters,
fitted them for their
college entrance ex-
aminations. In the
intervals of this
busy life he ardent-
ly pursued the
study of botany
and entomology, a taste which was
transmitted to his gifted son, Waldo
Irving Burnett. The old doctor died
in his son's sixteenth year, but not be-
fore he had rejoiced in the evidences of
the youth's great ability and promise.
Waldo Burnett wTas born in 1828
and died in 1854. During the twenty-
six years of his life, overshadowed at
the last by a fatal disease, he accom-
plished a work that places him among
the first of American scientists. "He
had not the advantage of a collegiate
education," writes Dr. Wyman ; "this
he chose to forego, not from any in-
difference to its value, but from a
sensitive unwillingness to subject his
father to any unnecessary expenditure
of his means. He gave early indica-
tions of great mental activity, and
mastered with ease all the studies of
the Academy ; in mathematics espe-
cially, he was unusually proficient.
Almost without assistance, at a later
period, he made himself familiar with
the French, Spanish and German lan-
guages." He passed the subsequent
years of his student life under the
direction of Dr. Joseph Sargent of

SOUTHBOROUGH

Worcester, . in the Tremont Medical
School and in the Massachusetts
General Hospital. While yet a medi-
cal student he was elected curator
of entomology for the Boston Society
of Natural History. When in Paris
in 1849 devoting himself to micro-
scopic observation, he received the
first serious warning of his failing
health. His position as an entomolo-
gist and microscopist was already
established, but it was during the last
few, unsettled years of his life that he
accomplished, not only a vast amount
of various intellectual work, but that
he also prepared the principal work
of his life, an essay entitled "The Cell.
its physiology, pathology and phi-
losophy, as deduced from original
observations ; to which is added its
history and criticism. Natura in min-
imus maxima est." This essay,
which received the prize from the
American Medical Association, em-
bodies more of the results of Dr.
Waldo> Burnett's investigation than
any other. Without too technical an
analysis of its contents the general
reader will find its special significance
in the fact that Dr. Waldo Burnett
here announced the theory, original
with him, of bacteria in the circula-
tion of the blood as transmitting dis-
ease. This statement, not then sub-
stantiated by proof, has been the
basis of the great advance in medical
science during the last half century.
Its discoverer, or the man who pointed
the way to its discovery, deserves
very high honor and special recog-
nition. Dr. Waldo Burnett's last
years of life were passed in the un-
availing pursuit of a climate which
would retard the ravages of con-
sumption. Florida was one of the

places where he found relief. With
his remarkable intellectual grasp of
natural conditions and keen mental
activity, he wrote several pamphlets
directing attention to the natural
history and resources of Florida and
to the remedial effect of its salubrious
climate. Physicians were quick to
respond to Dr. Waldo Burnett's
view of the effect of climate on tuber-
cular disease; and so much interest
was awakened in Florida that Pro-
fessor Tourgee named him its discov-
erer. "Not more than one other
naturalist in our country has given
such proofs of zeal and industry or
has, in so short a life, accomplished
so large an amount of scientific
labor."

Mr. Joseph Burnett, a son of the
second Charles Burnett, has been so
closely identified with the South-
borough of the last half century, that
he must be named in connection with

Joseph Burnett at 30

Deerfoot Farm House

every movement looking to the bet-
terment of the community and state.
His wise educational ideas and the
singular simplicity and dignity of his
life have become a part of the char-
acter of his time. His sons are the
present representatives of the family
in Southborough.

The Rev. Peter Whitney gives this
quaint description of the town's man-
ufacturing facilities in 1793: "On
Stony Brook are two faw mills, in fine
order, of profit to their owners, and
benefit to the town. Upon the fame
ftream are four corn mills. One in
the wefterly part of the town near its
fource, and on the great road, can
grind but about half the year, as
raifing a pond in the fummer season
would damage a large body of
meadow land. . . . On this Stony
Brook clothiers' works have lately
been erected in the eafterly part of
the town where much bufinefs is well
performed.'' Latterly manufacturing
has centred at two points of the Bos-
76

ton and Albany Railroad, occasioning
the settlement of two small villages,
Southville and Cordaville, while in
another part of the town a boot and
shoe factory has been built, resulting
in the village of Fayville.

Manufacturing seems alien and
transient to a town like this whose
true wealth lies in her soil. It has
proven by no means a mistaken judg-
ment on the part of the men of
"Marlborow" to have chosen the
meadows and uplands of Southbor-
ough for their "Cow Commons."
Then and now, the wealth of the
community can be measured very lit-
erally, like that of the Grecians of
old, in terms of pecus (cattle). The
township contains about two hundred
farms, ranging in size from ten to one
thousand acres. The tendency, as in
so many things nowadays, would
seem to be toward consolidation of
land into a few large farms carried on
with keen attention to modern scien-
tific methods.

Separator Room

Mr. Joseph Burnett in 1847
"bought land and grouped the acre-
age into what is substantially the
present Deerfoot Farm," one of- the
largest in Massachusetts and famous
throughout the country. The stone
house, the material quarried in
Southborough, was erected, and Mr.
Burnett began his experiment as a
scientific farmer. Improvement of
the breed of cattle early enlisted his
attention, and in 1854 he imported
one of the first herds of Jersey cattle
that ever came to the United States.
The breeding of choice cattle has
since been a specialty of Deerfoot
Farm. Mr. Burnett, with character-
istic enterprise, soon saw that scien-
tific farming might be made to pay;
that there was always a market for
dairy products known to be pure,
stable and reliable. In 1872 "Deer-
foot" milk, cream and butter were
offered for sale in Boston, and soon
earned a reputation that has occa-
sioned for them an ever increasing
demand.

The first successful cream separator
was the result of experiments carried
on at Deerfoot by a German inventor
and the Hon. Edward Burnett, for-
merly the representative in Con-
gress for this district. Cut out
of a solid block of brass of im-
mense weight, it was capable of a
speed of nine hundred revolutions
a minute, skimming from six to
eight hundred pounds of milk an
hour. This separator is now ex-
hibited as a mechanical curiosity at
the Smithsonian Institution in Wash-
ington. The new dairy of Deerfoot
Farm, first occupied in 1897, is fur-
nished with all the best appliances
known to modern science. Celerity
in handling and care in refrigerating
the product, perfect attention to ster-
ilization of the utensils are made cer-
tain at all times by an intelligent
equipment and by duplication of the
essential machinery. A morning
spent at this dairy is an object lesson
in the eternal vigilance that is the
price of pure food products. Deer-

Haying at Deerfoot

foot Farm has also< demonstrated
successfully the fact that pork prod-
ucts can be made to be wholesome and
toothsome food by .attention to the hy-
giene and habits of the pig, and
by insisting on his early death.

Model dairies and barns are
common enough to agricultural
experiments, but model quar-
ters for the farm hands are not
so frequent. The farmhouse at
"Deerfoot" is almost unique in
its provision for the comfort-
able housing of its help. "Each
hired man, in addition to his
own private alcove and bed,
has closets, bathroom, electric
light, scientific ventilation, li-
brary and recreation room, and
a hospital that can be isolated
from the rest of the house."
To Mr. Robert Burnett, the
present owner of "Deerfoot,"
this altruistic plan for housing
his working people is due. As
a sign of the times, what could
be more hopeful ?
78

But Deerfoot Farm is endeared to
New England for gentler reasons
than "little pigs and bacon." Here
James Russell Lowell spent some of

Robert M. Burnett's House

On Wolf-pen Farm

the last days of his life, looking out
upon its familiar loveliness and mak-
ing acquaintance with "the genus
loci, the shy little fellow who has
charge of the hills and the pastures
and the woodpaths here."

Southborough began her educational
history in the humiliation of a rebuke,
having been in 1732 called before a
grand jury in Worcester to answer
to the indictment of "having kept no
public school." With characteristic
energy, the town fathers amended
their ways and appointed two school-
masters to different portions of the
community: Dominie Johnson at a
salary of six pounds per year, and
Samuel Bellows, rewarded less mu-
nificently with four pounds and ten
shillings. Somewhat later the prac-
tice was in vogue of having one
teacher conduct school in the four
different parts of the town in rotation.
Until 1830 the largest sum granted
annually for support of education

was $400. In 1859 the Peters High
School was given to the town by Mr.
Henry Peters, a loyal and generous
citizen. The standard of the public
school has since been high and its
equipment excellent.

The importance of Southborough is
not chiefly in its peaceful local life or
its pastoral beauty of surroundings,
but rather in the fact that the town is
the home of two famous private
schools, the Fay School and St.
Mark's Classical School. In both the

House of Chas. F. Choate

Entrance and Cloister, St. Mark's School

religious life is in accordance with the
teachings of the Episcopal Church.
The ascendency of a ritualistic
religion has naturally tended to im-
press upon Southborough a character
differing widely from that of the
usual New England village, partaking-
somewhat of the charming features
of English cathedral towns.

The Fay School was opened in
1866 by Mrs. Eliza B. B. Fay and
Miss Harriet M. Burnett and is
truly a memorial to its founders.
Here, in a charming colonial home
with added dormitories, recitation
rooms, playrooms, and every facility
for their care and happiness, 'boys are
received between the ages of eight
and twelve for a four years' course
preparing them for St. Mark's and
other classical schools. Mr. Waldo
Burnett Fay is the present head
master. The school not only
aims to give a thorough prep-
aration for the fitting schools,
80

but to train lads physically as
well as mentally, and to lay the
foundation of sturdiness of character,
and purpose in work, and to develop
punctuality, self-reliance and integ-
rity. For its purposes the equipment
is ample and includes a gymnasium,
football and baseball fields, golf
course, tennis and squash courts and
spacious playgrounds. The regular
life which a small boy leads here
gives an opportunity for healthy
growth of mind and body, while he
is most carefully looked after in a
sensible practical < way, which the
school's remarkable record for the
health of its pupils proves efficient.
More than half of those who gradu-
ate go to St. Mark's.

The successful establishment of
church schools in New England has
been one of the more significant
features of modern education. At a
time when older endowed schools,
whether fostered by a "denomination"

"Cultivated Fields, Masses of Trees

■St

SOUTHBOROUGH

or not, were losing their numbers
from year to year because of the in-
creased facilities for the high school,
the first church school in New Eng-
land, St. Paul's of Concord, was
established. So successful was this
educational experiment that in ten
years' time it was difficult to secure
a place for a boy there. It was- then,
in 1865, that Mr. Joseph Burnett
founded St. Mark's of Southborough.
The Rev. Charles Wingate, speaking
of the hopes of the founder of St.
Mark's, voiced the feeling that was
at the root of church schools when
he said: "The most thoughtful men
in our communion, believing that a
system of teaching which sharpens
the intellect, but does nothing toward
improving the heart, a system
which would teach 'morality with-
out religion and religion with-
out a creed,' has, to say the least,
no tendencies to good; and be-
lieving, too, that whatever man
needs for instruction as well as
admonition should be furnished
through the medium of the Church,
are urging the establishment of
schools where the children of the
Church will not only be thoroughly
furnished with secular knowledge, but
also trained for God and heaven."

The eager response to the oppor-
tunities for such training at St.
Paul's inspired Mr. Burnett, and
"with singular disinterestedness, pru-
dence and foresight, and with a per-
sistency and perseverance daunted by
no obstacles, disheartened by no re-
verses, depressed by no disappoint-
ments, he pushed forward in the con-
fidence of a certain faith and with

See New England Mao;azine for June, 1897.

cheerful hopefulness," until St. Mark's
became from a beginning of twelve
pupils housed in a dwelling, the
school it is to-day with one hun-
dred and twenty-five boys domiciled
in the most complete and perfectly
equipped school building in this
country. St. Mark's has from the be-
ginning been modelled with a view
to being a home school in a very
real sense of the word, and a
home school suited to the pecu-
liar needs of life in the New Eng-
land climate. Its present building
finished in 1890, is most admirably
suited to serve these ends. It is
situated on high ground socially near
the village, and commanding a view
of cultivated fields, masses of trees,
rolling hills with their suggestive
spires, and gleams of white houses,
while Mt. Wachusett watches, senti-
nel-like, on the distant horizon.
"St. Mark's," writes Mr. Lowell,
"has been kindly taken into fellow-
ship by great nature, her friendly
grass has grown up to its feet
and she is encouraging wood-
bine and ivy to play, as they do,
gracefully and freely on the brick
walls."

The building fronts the south and
is built around an open quadrangle,
thus securing direct rays of the sun
in every part at some time in the day.
Cloisters connect the east and west
wings, while in the centre is the gate-
way, a fine architectural feature of the
structure, bearing the winged lion
and the motto of the school, "Age
Quod Agis." The cloisters and gate-
way are a memorial to Arthur Wel-
land Blake.

The chapel is at the west end of
the cloisters on the front of the build-

The Chapel

ing, and was given by Mr. August
Belmont as a memorial to his
brother, Raymond Rodgers Belmont.
A third wing has recently been added
containing well equipped laboratories

and a library, beautiful in its sim-
plicity and fitness.

Mr. Henry Forbes Bigelow, an
alumnus and the architect of the en-
tire building, certainly met the pecu-

The Hospital Wing

liar requirements of St. Mark's in a
masterly manner, "and gave to the
school a fitting- home — a place where
its work can be clone, and with the
least possible inconvenience and to
the greatest possible advantage."

"The entire life of the school/'
writes the Rev. Walter Cambridge,
a master in the school, "is un-
der one roof; its chapel services,
study, recitations, eating and sleep-
ing; and this means much, not
only for convenience, but also for
community of interest among the
boys, and between masters and
pupils. This fact, perhaps as much
as anything else, gives to St. Mark's
its distinct characteristics of simpli-
city and unity. It is quite impossible
to live long in the school, either as
84

master or boy, without becoming a
part of the whole life of the place and
absorbed in its interests/'

Tlie boy at St. Mark's finds him-
self a member of a well ordered,
aspiring community. As an indi-
vidual he stands for what he is in
relation to what he gives as a social
fellow being. He is surrounded with
spiritual, intellectual, social and
physical incentives, each nicely pro-
portioned to the other and to his
needs as a human being. ' The
religious customs of the school are
merely those of the well ordered
family life. Short chapel exercises
are observed morning and evening
in which all the boys take part. The
services are largely musical, the
vested choir of St. Mark's boys being

9^ I

•, "-/

0»*<lf

SOUTHBOROUGH

always one of the prominent and at-
tractive features of the school.

"For the classroom the school is
divided into six forms, each corre-
sponding to a year's work. The
course of study gives thorough prep-
aration for college and provides for
such special work as may be neces-
sary to prepare pupils for scientific
schools or particular colleges.'''
"Form spirit" develops a certain
stimulating rivalry between forms and
promotes a closer relation between
members. The "upper school," the
two upper forms, are given special
privileges in keeping with their ad-
vanced years and high attainments.
The privilege to study in their rooms,
proves a keen incentive to maintain
the grade of scholarship that wins
that liberty.

The boys of the three lower forms
are domiciled in dormitories. Each
alcove contains a window and is
sufficiently separated from the others
to insure privacy. A democratic
simplicity pervades these quarters as
the boys are, wisely, not allowed to
accumulate "properties" until they
arrive at the dignity of a room. Even
then they remain true to the spirit
of St. Mark's in maintaining their
curtains and cushions within the
limits of modest taste. There is a
refreshing virility in the atmosphere
of the boys' quarters, partaking as
they do of military simplicity and the
comforts of a home. A master's
room adjoins each dormitory to the
mutual advantage of pupils and
teacher.

Festival occasions at St. Mark's
usually mark some athletic or scho-
lastic victory. Founders' Day comes
near the close of the school year and

is the occasion for the distribution of
prizes. The Dramatic Club produc-
tions are social events, and the
Athletic Association meets offer
further opportunities for celebration.
When the Groton Spring Game
comes to St. Mark's the scene
around the campus is one of great
brilliancy. What more pleasing school
picture can be recalled than
St. Mark's radiant in the June sun-
shine, flushed with victory, singing
with boyish enthusiasm their school
song:

"Above thy gates the Lion bold,

Proud emblem which for years has told

The story how, in strenuous game, c

Thy sons have fought for thy fair name.

Symbol of strength! thy name we sing,
O Lion with the Eagle's wing."

There is a- kind of confession of
faith or pledge of mutual endeavor
which has been reprinted from year
to year in the annual catalog, which,
whatever its history, and whether it
is written law or not, is, as any one
who knows the school must admit,
very nearly realized. "The boys of St.
Mark's School are expected to ob-
serve, faithfully, the regular order at
all times, and in neatness and de-
corum, and readiness and kindness,
and good breeding, and in Christian
dutifulness, to be true and thorough,
so as to fulfil our motto, — Age Quod
Agis."

The corporation of St. Mark's has-
from the beginning been composed
of able and eminent men. Foui
bishops have stood at the head of the
lists of trustees, and among the lay-
men to render especial service have
been Mr. Joseph Story Fay, Mr.
Henry N. Bigelow, Mr. Daniel B.
Fearing, Mr August Belmont, Mr.

SOUTHBOROUGH

Joseph Burnett, the treasurer for
many years, and his son, Mr. Harry
Burnett, who has recently discharged
the duties of that office so efficiently.
The loyalty of the alumni has made
many improvements possible, and is
at all times a source of potential
strength.

The school has had six head
masters, three during the first eight
years of its establishment. The Rev.
James I. T. Coolidge, head master
from 1873 to 1882, is still living in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mr.
William E. Peck, the successor of
Dr. Coolidge as master and head
master, lived in St. Mark's for
twenty-two years. He was a man of
great honesty and sincerity of char-
acter and famous among his pupils
for the fairness and directness of his
dealings with them. Mr. Peck left
St. Mark's to open the Pom'fret
School in Connecticut in 1894. The
Rev. Walter Cambridge, writing for
The Churchman, says: "What Mr.
Peck did for St. Mark's, as a master
and as its chief executive, largely con-
tributed to the growth of the school,
and to a great extent makes possible
what it is now doing as an institu-
tion." He was succeeded by the
present head master, the Rev. Wil-
liam G. Thayer.

To Mr. Thayer's perception and
energy many very notable improve-
ments are due. Among them none
is more apparent, or perhaps impor-
tant, than the aesthetic improvements
Mr. Thayer has wrought in the
grounds and in the interior of the
building. Shrubbery, trees, vines,
and carefully kept lawns make the ex-
terior more beautiful, while the bare-
ness of the interior has been relieved

by the arrangement of carefully
selected photographs and casts.

The new wing of the building, first
opened for the use of pupils in June
of this year, adds much to the beauty
and convenience of St. Mark's.
Athletic conditions also have been
greatly improved by the acquirement
of the new athletic field, the gift of
Mr. August Belmont, and the addition
of the old English game, newer to
America, a "Fives" court. It is not
to material improvements alone that
one looks for evidences of growth, but
to all those intangible conditions that
create atmosphere. In the spirit of
St. Mark's, at once happy and busy,
in the courteous hospitality to
strangers, in the rare homelikeness
of the school- is seen the eloquent tes-
timony of Mr. Thayer's wise leader-
ship.

St. Mark's has always been averse
to notoriety, and has kept from pub-
lic print as much as possible. The
writer of this article has ventured to
include in her sketch of South-
borough this brief account, believing
that it may recall to many days of a
golden time,

"Whereon it was enough for me
Not to be doing, but to be."

The story of a New England
town is remarkable for what it leaves
untold. At best its institutions, a
few facts, a modicum of personal his-
tory, are all that can be related. But
let the imagination speak! Let it try
to depict the unutterable struggle
that has gone into making civilization
out of a wilderness during a single
century, and something of its supreme
significance will emerge. This im-
agination the "gentle reader" must
supply.

The Garret

By Edwin L. Sabin

HERE are the garments of long ago
(Passed is the matron, passed the maid) —
Hoop and mantel and furbelow,

Silken slipper and dulled brocade.
And the firelock stands in a corner dim,

And the broadsword listens, the calm months through,
Waiting the step and the voice of him

Who sturdily fought for the buff and blue.

Up where the high-peaked gables rise,

And from casements narrow the sun streams in ;
Where unmolested the gray dust lies,

And the wee mice romp and the spiders spin;
'Midst rafters sloping and angles deep,

In low hair trunk and in cedar chest,
From year to year, through a peaceful sleep,

The treasures of days departed rest.

THE GARRET

Scattered and patient doze the toys,

Dumbly appealing by dint and crack ;
And a cradle tells of a mother's joys

And a babe of a hundred years aback.
Yonder the chair of a fashion quaint,

Yonder the queer, warped cider-press,
Condemned, in spite of their mute complaint,

To moth, to rust, and to idleness.

Sleep, oh tokens of old, sweet days,

While the roof-tree shelters you, close above.
Sleep, as you ponder, with mild amaze,

Where are those fingers you learned to love.
And the dust motes dance in the bars of gold,

And the spiders weave 'twixt the bending beams,
And the wee mice frolic, by wont grown bold,

And the air is mellow with tender dreams.

Sweet Peas

By Erma Eloise Cole

SOON after the battle of Manila,
in the summer of 1898, quite a
little flurry was caused in Bos-
ton by the discovery of a con-
spiracy. The conspirator was Spanish,
as a properly gotten up conspirator
should be, who had been accumulating
information from an accomplice at
Washington. In the folly of his am-
bition, he had attempted to place a
nice little item of war munitions in
the hands of Spanish authorities, and
had also secured plans of the strategic
points in the mines of a certain im-
portant American harbor.

The conspirator caused more flurry
when, evading the police octopus,
whose feelers were reaching in every
direction with alarming rapidity, he
disappeared from the penetrativeness
of the Boston eyeglass in a flash. In
vain did telegraph wires quiver in
their haste to corral the missing
Christobal Aguilar. Whether he
wore an invisible cloak or had been
transformed into Dr. Jekyll, at least
he was in retreat beyond the rapid-fire
guns of the American police. His old
hiding place, which, unfortunately
for his stay among cultured Bay Stat-
ers, had become known to the secret
service, was now guarded persistent-
ly, lest any of his kind be playing the
mouse in the casement.

That Aguilar had received assist-
ance in the city was known, and the
police now busied themselves with the
90

task of tracing his assistant, hoping
eventually to discover the conspirator.

One July day of the same year,
Colonel Everett and I were sitting
high up in a Newmarket Street
restaurant overlooking the noisy mar-
ket wagons below and the roofs of the
shops opposite. We were slowly ab-
sorbing the last bits of a "queen's pud-
ding," which was our favorite in the
fare, when a party of four took seats
at a table directly at our left. The
man was piloting two women and a
girl, all from the Western States, we
judged, from the intrusive "r" which
often bubbled up.

My friend and I were discussing
the respective merits of the routes to
Buffalo, when our neighbor on the
left remarked : "In Buffalo, I believe.
They say they expected to find him
before he got out of Massachusetts,
but they think he is now in New
York." The clashing discord of
knives, forks and plates interrupted
the further trend of his remarks, but
the word "Aguilar" was wedged into
one of the intervals of hearing. At
this, the Colonel turned, glanced cu-
riously at the group, and said in a
low tone : "Queer that everybody in
town seems to know that they're try-
ing to trap Aguilar in Buffalo. He'll
get away yet."

The Colonel and I were planning to
leave Boston that afternoon for Buf-

SWEET PEAS

falo, and the question flashed through
my mind whether he had another er-
rand thither besides his urgent busi-
ness with a newspaper correspondent.
The Colonel is a veteran of the Civil
War, and has turned his energies to
the writing of the history of several
martial and political incidents of his
experience. His apparent annoyance
at the generality of the knowledge of
Aguilar's proposed capture was a sur-
prise to me, who could not see any
inconvenience if all Boston knew it.

Having finished our lunch, we de-
scended the heights . to the jumbled
"no thoroughfare" below, and by a
circuitous tour arrived at the Fitch-
burg station, the Fitchburg being the
route selected. Our coach was filled
with the usual representatives of ec-
centric America. But just as the
brightest button in a collection holds
the eye, so we were soon taking note
of a small, light-haired girl, who ap-
peared to be at ease and also not. She
sat two seats ahead of us and we were
able frequently to look at her. She
carried a violin case and a handsome
bunch of sweet peas which seemed to
be the only object of her concern.
The flowers were evidently a gift —
she spent so much time in looking at,
smelling of, and arranging them. We
invariably found her meditating over
and fingering them, unless absorbed
in the glories of the Berkshire hills
and their glistening necklaces of
dashing little streams. The conductor
would occasionally pause and instruct
her concerning the route — she seemed
to be inexperienced and travelling far,
and evidently had been given into the
conductor's care. She seemed also to
be well known to that head official.
The Colonel guessed her to be a sec-

ond violin in a theatrical orchestra,
hastening to join her company. He
is a close observer and clever at sur-
mising one's status, and this did seem
to be the most probable fact concern-
ing her.

Our four Western neighbors were
also present, a coincidence that has al-
ways to my mind been mysteriously
connected with the events of that
journey, but the Colonel laughs at the
idea.

It is remarkable how curious and
feminine-minded one may grow over
the possible identity of certain fellow-
passengers. There are lulls in the fas-
cination of all landscapes, when one's
mind involuntarily searches out the
why, whence, and whither data of our
neighbors. Thus I found myself con-
stantly speculating about the girl di-
rectly ahead.

She was soon obliged to give a
young man the place opposite, where
her beloved violin and sweet peas had
been lying, which she tucked in beside
her in her own seat. She and the
young man had the appearance of old
acquaintances, yet the girl relied upon
the protection of the conductor, as if
daring to consult no one else. It was
certainly evident that a feeling of
questioning uncertainty mingled with
that strange little air of hers of being
self-reliant in most respects. When
the young man left, the violin went
back to its bed among the sweet pea
garnishings. The young miss occa-
sionally gave a sociable glance at the
young girl of the Western party, and
it seemed to me that a glance of com-
prehension or special meaning was
exchanged. Yet they certainly had
not greeted each other.

Soon the young woman with the

SWEET PEAS

violin became so absorbed in the sun's
fiery departure beyond the historic,
pine-coiffured hills of the old Bay
State that her flowers were forgotten,
nor were they noticed again until
three men in a wild state of hilarity
and intoxication entered and declared
in ostentatious accents that they had
enlisted for the Philippines.

"Miss Sweet Peas" — our nickname
for her — recalled her surroundings,
only to find that her flowers were
wilted, — she had forgotten to keep
them moisfe, — and she gave an inquisi-
tive glance toward her nearest neigh-
bors, as if inviting some one to help
her through the difficulty of having
no vase.

A young man, or perhaps boy, who
had seemed also to take quite an in-
terest in the fate of the flowers, after
some search, triumphantly brought
out a remarkable, compact article that,
when properly extended, made a sky-
scraper cup of six stories, and offered
it to her. She took it with the same
air of dealing with an old acquaint-
ance that she had manifested toward
every one else, and the Colonel mut-
tered, "They've met before."

I mumured, "Who is she? Does
she have the acquaintance of every
one, whether from the polar regions
or the South Sea Islands? There's
the conductor, those Western people,
that young man opposite, and the one
who left a short time ago. Perhaps
she also knows us."

But the Colonel was convinced that
she was not acquainted with us, and
believed her acquaintance did not ex-
tend to the Westerners — that was too
coincidental. At any rate, we were
amused at the curiosity we men were
feeling about other people.

Our interest became gradually
divided between the three soldiers and
"Sweet Peas." One could not help
regarding the former, their voices
arose above everything. Many were
annoyed by their persistent boister-
ousness.

"Sweet Peas" seemed only to re-
gard them much as a child does that
which she has never before seen, and
several merry glances were ex-
changed between her and the Western
girl. At times she seemed to be
studying them closely. In one of
these moments she turned her eyes
suddenly away from the noisy group,
which seemed to be staring deliberate-
ly at her. She gave alert glances
toward the front and rear of the
coach as if anxious to see the con-
ductor appear. Whatever annoy-
ance she felt, thereafter she concealed
beneath an absorption in her flowers,
which she studied with evident plea-
sure.

A dark-faced soldier very softly
pressed the arm of one of his com-
panions and stealthily whispered
something. The man sat upright,
slowly began a tour with his eyes of
every inmate of the coach, his glance
approaching and resting upon "Sweet
Peas" last. He seemed to disagree
with the other's opinion. Then some
passengers began to regard them,
their sudden stillness seeming to have
caused attention. The three soldiers
had recovered their normal condition,
their boisterous voices ceased, and
their general air of rowdiness was
diminished. They were so quiet in-
deed that "Sweet Peas" glanced up
from her meditations and casually in-
cluded them in the careless glance she
bestowed upon all. But they were no

SWEET PEAS

longer insolent, and were somewhat
sobered and inclined to sleep.

The conductor re-entered, pausing
again at the young girl's side. She
had many questions to ask and dis-
played herself very unsophisticated in
her endeavors to solve for the first
time the puzzles of the route. Her
childish voice rang clear and bell-like
while conversing, and she continued
to enjoy the scent of the sweet peas.

Just before the sun's red battlefield
had been left to the victorious storm
clouds, Greenfield was announced,
where a ten minutes' lunch was to be
served. While the immense crowds
were alighting and others were wait-
ing to board the train, the sky burst
its reservoir and it rained with such
violence as to cause confusion. The
platform suddenly blossomed with a
multitude of umbrellas and the down-
pour had to be endured till refuge
was found inside the coaches. Buf-
falo Bill's Wild West Show — a rare
treat in the East — had drawn the
whole country-side to Greenfield, and
the whole country-side seemed deter-
mined to board our train. It was a
difficult feat for any one travelling
with a party to avoid being complete-
ly lost in the dense crowds.

There remained but a few more
minutes for lunch and the coaches
were fast filling up when our litt1e
second violin hastily snatched violin-
case and flowers and disappeared
through the rear door. Almost im-
mediately the three soldiers pushed
impatiently through the crowd, out at
the other door and rushed to the sta-
tion platform.

"So we've lost her," said the
Colonel. "Perhaps she belongs to
Buffalo Bill's company."

The warning clang of the bell soon
after was filling the coaches still more,
and the train had passed several rods
beyond the station when suddenly ap-
peared "Sweet Peas." Her seat was
of course occupied, and we offered her
ours. It was while she was once
more arranging her flowers and vio-
lin that we noticed that she appeared
to have had a serious battle with un-
strung nerves and was trying to ap-
pear calm and indifferent. Her eyes
were continually scrutinizing every
newcomer. But gradually here and
there the coach began to empty its ex-
cursionists, and she appeared as calm-
ly engrossed in her flowers as before.
Each pause at stations, however,
seemed to bring her attention again
to other things, and she seemed al-
ways prepared to leave, until she had
scanned the arrivals. Her manner be-
came so changed that the Colonel and
I concluded she was worried about
connections. The conductor contin-
ued now and then to explain things,
after which she would settle back with
evident relief. The Colonel thought
it was a shame for one so young and
apparently unused to travelling to be
alone. And I agreed with him. He
soon began to drowse, but I was thor-
oughly awake. It seemed to me that
even the entrance of conductor or
brakeman began to disturb "Sweet
Peas," and the changes she should
make preyed more than ever on her
mind. The brakeman, moreover, ac-
quired the habit of sitting down and
chatting with her in a rather familiar
vein, and I asked myself if it were
possible that they also were old ac-
quaintances. But there was some-
thing besides mere acquaintance in
the man's attitude, — there was an air

SWEET PEAS

of open admiration about him. His
companion, on the other hand, re-
garded him as if half quizzical and
coquettishly curious — an altogether
different quality from any before
shown.

I was beginning to be satisfied that
she was a. second violin of a theatre
company. Her manner certainly be-
gan to be that of the easygoing "flirt"
of that class. Occasionally she
glanced at the Western girl inquir-
ingly, as if curious what her thoughts
might be concerning her conduct.

The brakeman continued the con-
versation in a somewhat personal vein,
confiding that he was born in New
Hampshire. I wondered if she were
also giving her autobiography, but
she seemed only to listen, looking
about her questioningly.

All the passengers were asleep, with
the exception of myself, and the con-
ductor and brakeman had left us to
our peace when the train began to
burrow through the tunnel of the
Hoosac Mountains. "Sweet Peas"
was again preparing to leave the coach
at the next station. The air was be-
coming very close and filled with
smoke in places. It soon became so
annoying that, with some degree of
restlessness, I arose to see if there
were an aperture above, through
which it entered. Finishing the in-
spection, my glance fell upon "Sweet
Peas." She was softly opening her
violin case, revealing a violin with a
large, square neck, ending in a trian-
gular knob. She thrummed absent-
mindedly on the strings for a while,
then closed the case without perceiv-
ing that I had inspected her property.
Presently the brakeman entered,
spoke to her, and she followed him to

the door, where an animated discus-
sion occurred. She soon returned and
began to arrange her flowers.

Most of the occupants of the coach
were asleep. Mechanicsville was an-
nounced, whereupon intense relief
lighted up the countenance of this
strange girl. She tossed part of her
flowers to the half-dozing Western
girl, took her violin, and swiftly dis-
appeared in the gloom — the last
glimpse of her I was ever to have —
for this time she did not return.

The Colonel and I changed coaches
for the Wabash line at Rotterdam
Junction, and thence were prepared to
pass the night in peace, it being a
through train to Buffalo. But when
we approached Syracuse, excitement
prevailed here among the train offi-
cials. Two men entered, scanning
every person, seat, and corner, and
the rumor passed quickly from official
to passenger that a conspirator was
being tracked. The Syracuse station
master had received telegraphed or-
ders from Rotterdam to riold the train
until a small, light-haired young
woman, carrying a violin and bunch
of sweet peas, had been found and ar-
rested. No pains were to be spared.
She was on the train bound for Buf-
falo. These orders were referred to
Greenfield. The Colonel and I gazed
at each other. I could not rest till I
had learned all there was to hear.

A young woman, supposed to be
connected with the conspiracy of
Aguilar, had boarded the train at Bos-
ton, having evaded the police and
other officials, and was carrying docu-
ments which, if found, would incrim-
inate Aguilar, and money which
would place him safely out of the
country, besides certain additional

SWEET PEAS

plans of the harbor before mentioned.
Said documents were supposed to be
concealed in the violin.

The plan to capture Aguilar's ac-
complice had been that three pseudo-
soldiers should appear each day at a
certain point on the route from Bos-
ton, to discover any traces of the
fugitive, whom the police expected io
depart any day from the place, but
in what guise was not known. These
"soldiers" had at length discovered a
suspect — the girl with the violin — and
had stopped at Greenfield to attempt
her capture when they saw her slip
out of the coach. As we listened, the
Colonel and I smiled as we recalled
her ruse at Greenfield and how she
deceived the pursuers.

The conductor on the Fitchburg
line had sent testimony that she had
not left the coach, but had entered the
car behind, thus causing a frantic
search in the crowd. He also testified
to her having a ticket for Rotterdam,
where, she had told him, she would
change for Buffalo.

The travellers, who had to submit
to disclosing most of their personal
property and a cross-questioning,
were indignant that the officials were
not satisfied "by their looks" that
they were not red-handed conspira-
tors. As one officer paused before the
Western party, he began to re-read
his telegram closely, then beckoned to
his co-worker. The Western girl un-
concernedly held a bunch of sweet
peas and was awaiting the investiga-
tion. The officer suddenly remarked:
"Those are sweet peas, are they not,
young woman ? Now we'll see if you
have a violin, as well."

At this the old gentleman of their
party objected, declaring it to be an

outrage. But the men calmly pro-
ceeded to prod open baggage, at
length triumphantly bringing forth a
peculiarly shaped case containing — a
mandolin. Out of its house it came,
displaying to the breathless spectators
all the charms which a very finely
inlaid "potato-bug" could. It was
turned upside down and shaken; the
case was thoroughly searched; but
nothing appeared. They were on the
point of splitting the poor instru-
ment's head open, when the conductor
remarked : "Here, man, don't you
know a violin when you see it?
That's an innocent mandolin, not a
suspicious looking violin, as your or-
ders designate."

This was true ; but the suspicions of
the searcher were aroused since he had
found the sweet peas, and, despite the
Western gentleman's continued dec-
laration that he was a fool and was
trying to convict his daughter, who
had never seen Aguilar and never
wished to, he was obstinate. He felt
that the telegram had blundered.

Here was a clear case, — a small,
light-haired young woman, sweet
peas, and musical instrument. The
papers must be concealed elsewhere,
and she had "worked" the old gentle-
man to play the part of a father. Then
began the search again, and to such
a height was the interest of the entire
company lifted that it was very much
like the searching exhibitions of a
mind-reader.

"It seems to me, this has gone too
far," I remarked to the Colonel, and
I gave a recital of my glimpse of the
violin, whose use was obviously that
of a receptacle; the girl's disappear-
ance at Mechanicsville instead of Rot-
terdam; and her gift of flowers for

CHURCH AND STATE

some particular reason to the young
girl, now suspected.

The Colonel insisted on my reliev-
ing the situation by telling what I
had seen. And I mentally remarked
that "Sweet Peas" at least, if she had
assistance at Mechanicsville, was un-
doubtedly nearing the Canadian bor-
der— that refuge of the fleeing.

When I gave my testimony I was
at once taken for an "accomplice" of
the girl, and was released from sus-
picion only when the Colonel pro-
duced documents as to his own and
my identity, wherein I learned that the
Colonel himself was the man desig-
nated to complete the capture of
Aguilar when he should reach Buf-
falo.

I thought the Colonel took his de-
feat rather coolly. And the Western
girl, with easy good nature, turned
the affair off as a huge joke, and de-
clared she would preserve the sweet
peas as a memento of the most inter-
esting experience of her life.

And I — well, I wonder, a1 little in
doubt, whether this Western girl was
not a conspirator — if not directly, at
least indirectly — since by her posses-
sion of the flowers was the escape of
the other made complete through the
loss of time.

I had no doubt of her escape, for a
young woman who could assume the
innocence of a child, the coquetry and
appearance of a theatre girl, and
evade every official on the road, would
complete the drama successfully.

And so it proved. For shortly
after, the newspapers announced that
Christobal Aguilar and his daughter
had safely crossed the Canadian boun-
dary, where it was certainly impera-
tive he should arrive, having hidden
in the Hudson River region awaiting
his daughter's departure from Boston
until his life had been endangered.
His daughter had maintained a brave
seclusion in the city until her final
coup, one worthy of her Spanish an-
cestry.

Church and State in New England

By Augustus F. Moulton

BOTH the Pilgrim and the
Puritan were first of all re-
ligionists. There seems to
be no question that the rea-
son which actuated the Pilgrims in
making their settlement at Plymouth
in 1620, and which likewise supremely
influenced the Puritans who subse-
quently established themselves on the
shores of Massachusetts Bay, was
that they desired to enjoy in peace
their religious beliefs. Both settle-

ments were made by men and women
who had come out of great tribu-
lation. They had evolved a faith and
a creed which were to them sufficient
for life and death, and they cheerfully
exchanged their old home, their friends
and native land for a new abode in the
wilderness. This abode, though bleak
and lonely, was nevertheless hallowed
by the associations of the austere
religion which they regarded more
highly than all the comforts and

CHURCH AND STATE

pleasures of the world. They also ex-
pected and desired to establish and
perpetuate a new Commonwealth,
whose corner stone should be right-
eousness, where they and their de-
scendants might forever dwell, free
from the hateful influence of ritualists
upon the one hand and of infidels upon
the other.

It is not uncommon to hear the Pil-
grims and Puritans spoken of as if
they were the same. They were in-
deed of similar origin. Both were
products of the reformation begun by
Luther in the early part of the six-
teenth century. Perhaps it may be
more exact to look farther back and
say that they were a product of the
heresies, of those independents whose
most conspicuous example was stout
John WycklifT, the man who translated
the Bible and preached the word in
England nearly a hundred and fifty
years before the German monk began
his controversy with Rome. Those
Lollards, or babblers as they were
called, who chose to discuss religious
matters and criticise the creed and
the doings of the church, continued to
increase after the time of WycklifT.
Their discussions loosened the bond
which connected England with the pap-
acy. It is by no means true that the
English people deserted Roman Cath-
olicism merely because Henry VIII.
so commanded when he had been
thwarted in his matrimonial ventures
by the Pope. Ten years before Henry
annulled the papal authority in Eng-
land in 1534, Tyndall had set his print-
ing press at work and was scattering
his version of the Bible and his tracts
among the people. For some years
before that date, Hugh Latimer had
been preaching and teaching the doc-

trines of the reformation with the same
zeal which he displayed twenty years
later when in Bloody Mary's reign he
cried out at the stake "we shall this
day light such a candle, by God's
grace, in England, as I trust shall never
be put out." Not only was England
more than half Protestant when King
and Pope fell out, but there were many
who were far too radical to be kept
within the limits of the English Church.
It was a time when the discussion of
religion was engrossing the attention
of all the world. The Bible was in the
broadest sense a revelation. Its liter-
ature, its history and its teachings
were recited and argued in every
home.

It was natural that the theological
controversy should produce a variety
of beliefs. In the long reign of Queen
Elizabeth, the greater part of the
English people were members of the
Anglican Church. Most of them
claimed it to be the original Apostolic
Church, redeemed from the errors of
Rome and the papacy. A consider-
able number, however, desired to have
the Church conformed in doctrine and
policy to the reformed churches of the
continent. The latter sometimes called
themselves root and branch men, but
their opponents named them in deri-
sion Puritans, and this name, Puritan,
or Church Puritan, they adopted and
by it they are commonly known. The
Puritans were not in fact outside of
the Church, but were restless members
within it. They desired the apostolic
way, but they objected to the dictation
of the King. The Apostles, they de-
clared, asked no consent of Caesar in
formulating their creed, and no author-
ity could be found in the scriptures for
making the determination of faith

CHURCH AND STATE

and morals a part of the royal prerog-
ative.

The Independents, or Separatists,
on the other hand were a sect, not
large in point of numbers, who fol-
lowed so much of the teachings of
Robert Browne as declared the Puri-
tans to be mistaken in adhering to the
Church. The Independents placed
their religion upon an individual basis.
They considered that a church should
be an organization of holy men inde-
pendent of any state control. But
Queen Elizabeth was head of the
Church and such doctrine implied a
denial of the royal supremacy. It was
practically the preaching of treason,
and so every inveterate Separatist was
liable to the penalty of death.

The Pilgrims who came to New
England were for the most part Separ-
atists who had withdrawn from the
Anglican Church and had been organ-
ized as an independent congregation in
the drawing-room of William Brew-
ster at Scrooby Manor in Notting-
hamshire. Brewster was a Cam-
bridge graduate, and John Robinson,
the Minister of the Society, was like-
wise a Cambridge University man.
John Carver, the first Governor of
Plymouth, and William Bradford,
who followed him in the Governorship,
were active members of this church.
Their meetings were held in secret,
but the officers of the law were soon
after them. At that time, Holland,
following the policy inaugurated by
William the Silent, granted religious
toleration to all, and in 1608 the Scroo-
by congregation, leaving stealthily in
detachments, emigrated to Holland.
There they remained twelve years,
eleven of which were spent in
Leyden, where additional emigrants

increased their number to about a
thousand.

It soon became apparent that in a
foreign land the rising generation must
lose their English speech and English
manners, and, more than that, amid
such surroundings their religion could
not be expected to retain its austere
purity. And so it came to pass that
after negotiation with the London
Company, the Mayflower crossed the
ocean and landed her precious freight
of one hundred passengers at Plym-
mouth. The passengers which the
Mayflower carried were an ordinary
ship-load of men, but that fateful ves-
sel bore also, as another cargo, which
no man saw nor comprehended, ideas
of expansive power that were to in-
fluence a continent.

It is apparent that those enthusiasts
did not come to Plymouth to estab-
lish religious toleration. They came
rather to escape from the baneful ef-
fect of such a thing. Although Hol-
land afforded them a refuge, they re-
garded it, from a theological point of
view, as a nest of unclean birds. In
those times there were few who did
not regard it a sin to admit that differ-
ent forms of belief might be acceptable
to God. One could not allow that
another might be right without at the
same time conceding that he himself
might be wrong. The question of the
relation of the church and state had
little opportunity to arise during the
early years of the Plymouth Colony,
because they were all religionists of
one school. The town meeting and
representative government had never
suggested themselves to any one. The
Settlers were too few in numbers for
them to need representatives. At the
end of ten years, there were but three

CHURCH AND STATE

hundred of the Colonists, and the same
meeting house where the congregation
assembled on Sundays for worship
was used on week days for arranging
the public business. It was the irregu-
lar meeting of the Pilgrim congrega-
tion that later became with them the
systematized town meeting.

The exodus of the Puritans to Mas-
sachusetts Bay began about ten years
after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.
Charles the First came to the throne in
1625. He asumed to rule by right di-
vine. After four years of wrangling
he dismissed his Parliament and as-
serted his own autocratic rule.
Strafford and Laud began their
thorough work in the Church to ban-
ish dissent and compel obedience to
the Episcopal creed. A heavy hand
was laid especially upon the Puritans,
Both civil and religious liberty then
seemed lost in England and the Puri-
tans began a look about for some av-
enue of escape. Before 1630 there had
been a few feeble attempts to form
settlements outside of the Plymouth
Colony. In that year the general move-
ment . upon the part of the Puritans
began. By the end of December sev-
enteen ships with more than a thou-
sand emigrants, had come to New Eng-
land. More and more the volume of
the exodus increased until the year
1640, when the long Parliament, met
to begin the struggle for freedom on
English soil, saw above twenty-three
thousand representatives of the best
blood of England settled upon the
lands adjacent to Massachusetts Bay.
They had been Church Puritans at
home, but, having been driven from
the Church, they soon became Separa-
tists in fact and sound haters of Epis-
copalianism. The settlements were

large and the need of civil government
became at once imperative and the
town meeting developed itself sponta-
neously from the necessities of the sit-
uation.

The exodus was almost wholly of a
religious nature, and an ecclesiastical
policy was straightway adopted. They
had no bishops to consecrate the clergy
by laying on of hands, but a church
covenant and confession of faith were
drawn up by Francis Higginson, and
a committee, authorized by the church,
ordained the ministers. The govern-
ment of the Colonies, except Rhode
Island, as they were severally estab-
lished, became of ecclesiastical charac-
ter and in that form was handed down
to subsequent generations. The grad-
ual relinquishment of church control
over civil government in New Eng-
land forms an interesting subject for
consideration.

The charter of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony was granted by King
Charles in the fourth year of his reign,
namely, March 4, 1628. It declared in
verbose phraseology that Sir Henry
Rosewell and twenty-five associates by
name "and all such others as shall
hereafter be admitted and made free
of the company and society herein-
after mentioned, shall from time to
time and at all times forever hereafter
be, by virtue of these presents, one
body corporate and politic in fact and
name by the name of the Governor
and Company of the Massachusetts
Bay in New England." It was pro-
vided "that from henceforth forever
there shall be one Governor, one Dep-
uty Governor, and eighteen Assist-
ants of the same company, to be from
time to time constituted, elected and
chosen out of the freemen of the said

100

CHURCH AND STATE

company for the time being." These
Assistants were to be called together by
the Governor as occasion might re
quire "to consult and advise of the
business and affairs of the said com-
pany." They should hold "upou
every last Wednesday in Hilary,
Easter, Trinity and Michas terms re-
spectively forever, one great, general
and solemn assembly, which four gen-
eral assemblies shall be styled and
called the four great and general
Courts of the said Company." It was
further provided that they "shall have
full power and authority to choose,
nominate and appoint such and so
many others as they shall think fit
and that shall be willing to accept the
same, to be free of the said Company
and body, and them into the same to
admit." It will be observed that the
original government of the Massachu-
setts Bay Colony was by no means a
popular one. It was restricted to
those who should be admitted .as
"freemen." The freeman was entirely
distinct from the freeholders, who
were land owners, and from the inhab-
itants who might or might not be
property holders. Before being ad-
mitted as a freeman the inhabitants
took the formidable freeman's oath, to
be faithful to the Government, to
maintain its liberties, and to act con-
scientiously in all things. Only the
freemen so admitted were entitled to
vote generally, although later, when
townships were organized, the free-
holders and sometimes all the inhabi-
tants were allowed to vote upon choice
of town officers and money raised by
way of rate. Accordingly, we find in
the same book records of "meeting of
the freemen," "meeting of the free-
holders" and "generall towne meeting."

Under the charter no particular test
was required for admission to the
office of freeman. The Assistants and
the freemen selected by them could
add to their number whomsoever they
might choose. One of the very first
laws passed by the Puritan Colony,
however, provided, "To the end that
the body of the freemen may be pre-
served of honest and good men: "Yt
•is ordered that henceforth no man shall
be admitted to the freedom of this
Commonwealth but such as are mem-
bers of some of the churches within
this jurisdiction." This was followed
by the further provision, "It is the in-
tent and order of the Court that no
person shall henceforth be chosen to
any office in the Commonwealth but
such as is a freeman."

The orthodoxy of the churches was
determined in a summary manner.
There were a few who were not will-
ing to give up the Anglican forms of
worship, and in Salem it was attempt-
ed to establish an Episcopal Church.
Governor Endicott immediately had
the leaders put on board ship and sent
back to England. If the Episcopa-
lians in the old Country chose to in-
sist that the Puritans could not be in
their communion, the New England
settlers who had been driven out were
ready to take them at their word. The
separation had become an established
fact and there was no disposition to
revive old controversies. The Epis-
copalians were welcome to worship as
they pleased, provided they did so in
the old Country or up in Maine where
Gorges, Cammock, and the rest
boasted of their loyalty to Church and
King, but Massachusetts would have
none of it.

It appears that office seeking was

CHURCH AND STATE

101

not so prevalent in the early days as it
has become in later times, and accord-
ingly the great and general Court felt
constrained to legislate as follows :
"Whereas many members of Churches
to exempt themselves from public ser-
vices will not come in to be made free-
men, it is ordered, etc., if any person,
being legally chosen thereunto, he shall
pay for every such refusal such fine as
the town shall impose, not exceeding
twenty shillings for one offence."

That the theocratic form of govern-
ment was of rigid character appears
throughout the Colony laws. In 1663
it was "ordered by this Court and the
authority thereof that all persons, qua-
kers or others, who refuse to attend
upon the publick worship of God here
established; that all such persons,
whether freemen or others acting as
aforesaid, shall, and hereby are, made
uncapable of voting in all civil assem-
blies during their obstinate persisting
in such wicked ways and courses."

Early provision was made for the
proper support of both government
and churches. It was enacted that the
Court "doth order that every inhabi-
tant shall contribute to all charges both
in church and Commonwealth whereof
he doth or may receive benefit; and
every such inhabitant who shall not
contribute proportionately to his abil-
ity to all common charges, both civil
and ecclesiastical, shall be compelled
thereunto by assessment and distress
to be levied by the Constable or other
officer of the town." But "the minis-
ters of God's word, regularly ordained
over any Church of Christ, orderly
gathered and constituted, shall be
freed from all rates for the Country,
County and Church."

The laws enacted by the early Col-

onists have, at different times, been
collected and printed. They may be
found in an official volume which is
now quite rare, but which is often re-
ferred to by the Courts, for those laws
and regulations were the foundation of
a large part of our present Statute
Law, and form the basis of many
vested rights. The somewhat formal
title of the book is "The Charters and
General Laws of the Colony and
Province- of Massachusetts Bay, care-
fully collected from the Publick rec-
ords and ancient Printed Books: to
which is added an Appendix tending
*to explain the spirit, progress and his-
tory of the jurisprudence of the State,
especially in a Moral and Political
View."

Among the sound and practical laws
in this compilation there appear many
curious provisions. The Acts respect-
ing Capital Crimes make reference in
each case to the Chapter and verse of
scripture relating to the same. It is
provided that "for the yearly choosing
of Assistants, the freemen shall use
indian corn and beans, the Indian corn
to manifest election and the beans con-
trary; and if any freeman shall put in
more than one indian corn or bean for
the choice or refusal of any publick of-
ficer, he shall forfeit for every such of-
fence ten pounds."

In most cases the reason for the en-
actment of the law is set out with
quaint directness. The common school
was one of the first objects to receive
attention and there is a world of mean-
ing in the beginning of the Act respect-
ing schools. "It being one chief proj-
ect of Satan to keep men from the
knowledge of the Scripture, as in for-
mer times keeping them in unknown
tongues ... to the end that

102

CHURCH AND STATE

learning may not be buried in the
graves of our forefathers in Church
and Commonwealth, the Lord assist-
ing our endeavors, it is therefore or-
dered, &c." Six years after the Puri-
tans came there was an Act respecting
"The College" which began "Whereas,
through the good hand of God upon
us, there is a College founded in Cam-
bridge, in the County of Middlesex,
called Harvard College" . . . .
and to it they gave four hundred
pounds and the revenue of the ferry
betwixt Charlestown and Boston.
Moreover it was considered that the
youth should be educated not only in
good literature, but in sound doctrine;
consequently the Selectmen must see
to it that none should be teachers that
have manifested themselves unsound
in the faith or scandalous in their lives.

The duellist and the suicide were to
be denied a Christian burial, the for-
mer to be buried without a coffin, with
a stake driven through his body, and
the latter to be buried in the common
highway and a cart load of stones laid
upon the grave.

There is little reference to Parlia-
ment or King, but the recollection of
the Star Chamber is recalled when they
rose to a lofty plane and ordered that
"no man's life shall be taken away, no
man's honor or good name shall be
stained, no man's person shall be ar-
rested, restrained, banished nor an}
way punished, no man's goods or es-
tate shall be taken away, unless it be by
virtue or equity of some express law
of the Country warranting the same, or
in case of the defect of a law, by the
word of God."

One is reminded that the Puritan in
the new world was of the same school
as the Puritan of the old, by laws simi-

lar to those enacted by the English
Commonwealth a dozen years or so
later, during the protectorate of Crom-
well. Dancing and card playing were
forbidden, the observance of Christ-
mas was not allowed, the morals of the
people were guarded with jealous care
in regard to Church attendance and in
many ways. These Puritans were not
altogether intolerant. They allowed
other sects to worship in their own
way, provided they first obtained per-
mission from the Magistrates and were
quiet and orderly. But they were posi-
tive in disallowing any attempts to un-
dermine the orthodox faith or to dis-
seminate heterodox doctrines. These
privileges of worship were extended
only to Protestants. Papists were con-
sidered as having no rights and to be
entitled to no consideration.

The compilation of laws referred to
were those of the Province and Colony
of Massachusetts Bay. The same rigor
was not found in all the Colonies. The
laws of New Haven, before it was an-
nexed to Connecticut in 1661, were the
most straight-laced of all, and gave
some basis for the well known carica-
ture upon them by Samuel Peters,
called the Blue Laws. The Pilgrim
Colony of Plymouth never restricted
the suffrage to church members, and it
was liberal in regard to religious be-
liefs. The Act which terminated its
separate existence in 1692 also abol-
ished the requirement of church mem-
bership for voting in Massachusetts.

The people of Connecticut guarded
well the morals of her people but did
not make a religious test for voting.
New Hampshire was largely settled by
heterodox people, Episcopalians and
Antinomians, but in 1641 it came un-
der the dominion and laws of the

CHURCH AND STATE

103

stronger colony of Massachusetts Bay,
though a considerable part of its in-
habitants had little regard for Massa-
chusetts or her laws. Maine, under the
dominion of Gorges and his friends,
Jocelyn, Macworth, and Jordan, was
hopelessly given over to Episcopalian-
ism and had little, if any, idea of suf-
frage of any kind. The Statutes of the
stronger colony prevailed there after
1658, when Massachusetts, with the
help of Cromwell, benevolently assimi-
lated, and later bought, it of the heirs
of Gorges, and so continued until the
separation in 1820. The province of
Maine rendered unwilling obedience to
Massashusetts laws until it was reset-
tled after King Philip's War, and even
then it was a resort for those who had
small regard for creeds or churches.
Consequently, up to 1692, when the
new charter granted by William and
Mary abolished the religious test for
voting, the greater part of New Eng-
land was governed by Massachusetts
laws and statutes. The one great and
conspicuous exception was the colony
of Rhode Island. There Roger Wil-
liams and his followers allowed perfect
liberty of conscience in all matters of
church and state. The hospitality of
the noble little colony was tested to the
limit of endurance by the fanatics and
pestilent religious cranks who made it
their refuge, but it never faltered in its
devotion to the principles of toleration.
In spite of all protests and in spite of
being excluded from the union of the
New England Colonies, Williams de-
clared and maintained that "the free-
dom of different consciences shall be
respected."

While we may condemn the bigotry
of the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay,
we cannot fairly call them inconsistent

or hypocritical. There is more to be
offered in defence of their position
than can be said in favor of their breth-
ren who remained at home and en-
deavored to make England under the
Protectorate a nation of saints. The
New England Puritans were doubtless
fanatical to a considerable extent, but
their honesty was beyond question.
This world to them was but a place of
preparation for the real life beyond.
The pomps and vanities of earth were,
according to their creed, as nothing
when compared with eternity. Amid
all trials and disasters they were able to
say with earnestness, impressive be-
cause it was sincere, "These light af-
flictions which are but for a moment
shall work out for us a far more ex-
ceeding and eternal weight of glory."
It lay at the foundation of the Puritan
faith to make all the actions and doings
of this brief life, so< far as in them lay,
acceptable in the light of Him to whom
a thousand years are as yesterday when
it is past and as a watch in the night.
They had removed themselves to an
unexplored and dangerous wilderness
for the purpose of establishing a Com-
monwealth which should be in accord
with their high ideal. For this pur-
pose they had come far, regardless of
dangers by sea and land. For this
ideal, they had sacrificed property,
friends, connections, native land —
everything that was dear to a home-
loving people. The place which they
occupied was their own. They intrud-
ed upon no one, they molested no one
outside of their own bounds, they only
asked that they likewise should not be
molested. They felt that they had a
right to keep the seeds of evil away
from the soil of their new state and
to protect the wheat field of their

104

CHURCH AND STATE

faith against those who would sow
tares therein.

This was their intention, and it is
curious to observe how their energy,
intelligence, and study of the Bible
gradually widened their mental and
spiritual horizon. With their preach-
ing and their schools, they were all
the time building better than they
knew. They would of themselves in
time have worked the problem out,
but they were not allowed to do so
without interference. Their plans
for building and maintaining a state
of highest quality, united with a
church having a creed correct and un-
alloyed, were soon disrupted in spite
of all their care. The immediate
causes of disturbance were : first, The
Quakers; second, The Episcopalians,
who, after Cromwell, asserted them-
selves; and third, The Baptists, with
their pleas for soul liberty and hatred
of state interference with religion.

Governor John Winthrop died in
1649, to° early to know anything of
the Quaker sect. He had managed
the affairs of the colony with great
discretion. Under his firm and ju-
dicious policy it had prospered in
church and state. Those who would
stir up theological strife were quietly
sent away. "The settlers had come
to New England," he said, "in order to
make a society after their own model ;
all who agreed with them might come
and join that society; those who dis-
agreed with them might go elsewhere."
In order to understand how people so
inoffensive as the Quakers could stir
up trouble in the Province of Massa-
chusetts Bay, one should consider the
origin of that sect. They, like the
Puritans, were a product of the re-
Ikjntis tendencies of the times.

George Fox, the founder of the So-
ciety of Friends, began to preach in
England in 1648. He came, as he
declared, to announce "the appearance
of the Lord's everlasting truth and
breaking forth again in His eternal
power in this our day and age in Eng-
land." His doctrines speedily attracted
wide attention and he and his follow-
ers travelled about preaching to vast
congregations like Wesley and White-
field in later years. From the trem-
bling and excitement at their meetings
they received the name of Quakers.
They claimed to be governed by no
particular creed, but by the inward
light of the spirit. Doctrines of this
kind, however well presented, were
calculated to attract the enthusiastic
and eccentric, and the new sect had
many of that sort. There were some
among the fanatical disciples of the
inner light who sought for striking
and original ordeals by which to prove
their zeal. They went far to invite
persecution and indulged in strange
and even gross performances. Mary
Fisher, "a religious maiden," and Ann
Austin, having visited other lands with
missionary fervor, arrived at Boston in
July, 1656, and there began to preach.
In this steady going and well ordered
community their radical doctrines ex-
cited horror and disgust. There was
no law against Quakers as such, but
the general statute provided: "al-
though no human power be Lord over
the faith and consciences of men, yet
because such as bring in damnable
heresies, tending to the subversion of
the Christian faith and destruction of
the souls of men, ought duly to be re-
strained from such notorious impieties

. . . it is therefore ordered that
every such person continuing obstinate

CHURCH AND STATE

105

therein after due means of conviction,
shall be sentenced to banishment." Ac-
cordingly, the books of the religious
maiden and her coadjutor were burned
by the hangman. They were searched
for signs of witchcraft, and, after
being confined in jail five weeks, they
were placed on board ship and sent
away. Thereupon the Quakers, as it
has been said, "rushed to Massachu-
setts as if invited." Those who thus
intruded their unwelcome presence
upon a staid and sanctimonious com-
munity were not of the excellent and
dignified class who settled Pennsyl-
vania, but were mainly freaks and
cranks who longed, with intemperate
zeal, for martyrdom of some sort.
They were representatives of the fa-
natics who travelled to Rome to de-
nounce the Pope, and who visited
Jerusalem to testify against the super-
stition of the monks. Mary Fisher,
after leaving Boston, went to Turkey
to preach against Mohammed IV. in
his capital. Some of those who came
to Massachusetts made themselves of-
fensive by travelling about in sack-
cloth, like the ancient prophets. Others
would rail at the Governor as. he
walked in dignified state along the
street. They would go into the
churches on Sunday with their hats on
and interrupt and contradict the
preacher. John Fiske relates that
Lydia Wardwell and Deborah Wilson
considered it their duty to travel about
the streets of Boston entirely naked,
and called their conduct "testifying be-
fore the Lord." The Puritans had
set themselves up to criticise other re-
ligionists, and nothing could be more
exasperating than to be denounced by
these Quaker critics as the children of
Baal and the enemies of God.

The same season that the Quakers
first came, the General Court passed an
Act with this preamble: "Whereas
there is a cursed sect of hereticks lately
risen up in the world which are com-
monly called Quakers, who take upon
them to be immediately sent of God
and infallibly assisted by the spirit to
speak and write blasphemous opinions,
despising government and the order of
God and Commonwealth, speaking evil
of dignities, reproaching and reviling
Magistrates and Ministers, seeking to
turn people from the faith and gain
proselytes by their pernicious ways."
It was therefore ordered that no ship-
master should bring them within the
jurisdiction under heavy penalties, and
if he should do so must carry them
back.

Nevertheless the Quakers continued
to appear and it was next ordered that
no person should harbor or conceal
them under a penalty of forty shillings
for every hour's entertainment. A
year later, 1658, it was enacted be-
cause "divers of our inhabitants have
been infected and seduced notwith-
standing all former laws made" and
because "they have not been deterred
from their impetious attempts to un-
dermine our peace and hasten our
ruin," that every person of the cursed
sect should be apprehended and sen-
tenced to banishment upon pain of
death. Three years later, the General
Court again took up the case of Quak-
ers who "do like rogues and vagabonds
come in upon us, and have not been re-
strained by the laws already provided."
It was ordered that one adjudged to
be "a wandering Quaker, to wit, one
that hath not any dwelling and not giv-
ing civil respect," should be tied to a
cart's tail and whipped from town to

106

CHURCH AND STATE

town till he be conveyed "to the out-
wardmost towns of our jurisdiction."
If such wandering Quaker, having
been thrice sent away, should, for the
fourth time, return, he should be
branded with the letter R. upon his
shoulder and whipped and sent away
again. If after this the wandering
Quaker should come back once more,
he should then be deemed an incor-
rigible rogue and an enemy of the
common peace and be liable to the
punishment of death.

Connecticut, New Haven, and Plym-
outh, as well as Massachusetts,
passed laws against the Quakers. In
Rhode Island, it was declared that any
breach of the civil law should be pun-
ished, but she adhered to her declara-
tion that the "freedom of different con-
sciences shall be respected" ; and to
Rhode Island, it was said, they did
least of all desire to come.

The death penalty was four times in-
flicted upon Quakers who defiantly and
persistently returned from banishment.
The most conspicuous victim was
Mary Dyer, wife of the Secretary of
Rhode Island. Hers was a pathetic
case. She was of excellent family,
but felt it her duty to leave husband and
child and go to Boston to testify, in ex-
press defiance of the law. Again and
again she was sent home. The Gov-
ernor himself begged her not to return.
Her family and friends entreated her
to desist. On the gallows she refused
to depart saying, "In obedience to the
will of the Lord I come, and in His will
I abide faithful unto death." Mary
Dyer, living, defied Massachusetts. By
her death she conquered Massachu-
setts, for her example more than any-
thing else stirred up the feeling which,
at the next session, caused the law lo

be suspended. Two years afterward,
in 1662, the Legislative Record reads,
"This Court heretofore, for some rea-
son inducing, did judge meet to sus-
pend the execution of the laws against
Quakers" and it ordered that the law
"be henceforth in force in all respects."
It was of no avail. Mary Dyer and
her fellow martyrs had won. The ex-
clusive rule of the Puritan Church in
Massachusetts was broken forever.
The Puritan Commonwealth in Eng-
land reached its end the same year that
Mary Dyer died, but, independently
of that fact, public sentiment forbade
the executions. The vagabond Quaker
and the resident Quaker and other
heterodox persons were thenceforth
suffered to live and to preach.

In the early history of New Eng-
land, the Episcopalians had little in-
fluence. The Puritans at home were
members of the Mother Church, but
they contended for its reformation by
eliminating from it prelacy and vain
ceremonies. The Virginia Charter es-
tablished the Church of England there,
but at the time of the Endicott settle-
ment at Salem the use of the prayer
book was prohibited, and thereafter
those who used it were sent away.
Such Episcopalians as were among
them could not partake with them of the
Lord's Supper, and consequently were
not allowed to vote or hold office. This
was a constant source of irritation and
complaint, especially in New Hamp-
shire and in Maine after they came un-
der the dominion of Massachusetts.
After the restoration in 1660, Charles
II. had little regard for the provinces
which gave him no respect as head
of the Church and little respect in any
way. It was then suggested that the
Church of England should be estab-

CHURCH AND STATE

107

lished as a State Church in Massachu-
setts and that none but its ordained
clergy should solemnize marriages.
This proposition aroused instant defi-
ance and its enforcement was not at-
tempted, but it was ordered that the
laws prohibiting the Episcopal form of
worship and restricting the right of
suffrage to church members should be
abolished. The Colonists took the
royal order under consideration, but
did nothing about it. The feeling of
irritation increased, and it ended in a
writ of quo warranto, under which
writ a decree in chancery, June 21,
1684, was issued, annulling the Char-
ter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
That of Connecticut was also taken
away. Plymouth had none to lose.
The next year Charles died, and James
II. succeeded him. The dull tyranny
of James soon made trouble in Eng-
land and America. Sir Edmund An-
dros was sent over as royal governor,
and by the authority of the King Old
South Meeting House was taken pos-
session of for the use of the Church of
England. The right of the Colonists
to govern themselves was pretty nearly
abrogated. Massachusetts was upon
the verge of rebellion when the revolu-
tion of 1688 deposed James and placed
William and Mary upon the throne.
Andros was arrested and imprisoned,
and government was again set up in
accordance with the old forms. The
new Sovereigns allowed Connecticut
to keep her Charter as not having been
regularly cancelled, but to Massachu-
setts, in 1 69 1, was granted one entirely
new. This Charter recited the grant
to the Council of Plymouth, the con-
veyance made to the Colonists of Mas-
sachusetts Bay, and the writ of quo
zvarranto under which the said letters

patent had been cancelled, vacated, and
annihilated. Its terms differed in im-
portant particulars from those of the
old charter.

The Province of Massachusetts Bay
was to include the colony of New Ply-
mouth, the Province of Maine, the ter-
ritory called Accadia, or Nova Scotia,
and all that tract of land lying between
the said territories of Nova Scotia and
the said Province of Maine. John
Mason's New Hampshire grant, how-
ever, was not to be interfered with.
The Governor was to be appointed by
the King instead of being elected. Fur-
thermore, no discrimination against
Episcopalians or others in matters of
government was allowed, for it said
"forevermore hereafter there shall be a
liberty of conscience allowed in the
worship of God to all Christians ex-
cept papists," and the General Court
should consist of freeholders elected by
the freeholders and other inhabitants
owning property in the respective
towns. The Episcopalians had sup-
plemented the work of the Quakers,
and theocratic government all over
New England no longer existed. The
new charter of 1662, which united
Connecticut and New Haven, allowed
no religious discrimination. New
Hampshire, made a royal province in
1679, had no religious test for voting.
Rhode Island, by her Charter of 1662,
maintained, as she had always done,
perfect liberty of conscience. It was
fully time for such a change. A new
generation had come upon the stage
of action. The children were not
walking in the straight paths of the
fathers. Twelve years before the
new charter was granted, it was re-
ported that the religious test in Mas-
sachusetts excluded four fifths of the

108

CHURCH AND STATE

grown men from voting or holding
office.

Although church membership was
no longer a requisite for suffrage nor
for holding office, the connection of
church and state still continued. It
had long been declared to be the duty
of the Christian Magistrate to take care
that the people be fed with wholesome
and sound doctrine, and the Statute
provided that in each town an honor-
able allowance should be made to the
Minister, respecting the ability of the
place, that there should be conven-
ient habitations for the ministers of
the word, and later that there should
be public meeting-houses for the wor-
ship of God, and that the expense of
all this should be assessed upon each
person and collected and levied as
other town rates. It goes without say-
ing that only that was considered to be
wholesome and sound doctrine which
was preached by the orthodox min-
isters, and that the money raised by
church rates was applied exclusively
for the benefit of the standing order.
Against this injustice there was waged
a contest, arduous and long, and the
credit of bringing it to a successful is-
sue belongs, most of all, to the Bap-
tists, or, as they were called, the advo-
cates of "soul liberty."

The origin of the Baptists is less
clearly defined than that of some other
denominations. Their beliefs were
not derived from any one teacher, but
were developed during the great awak-
ening in religious thought which char-
acterized the beginning of the six-
teenth century. The principal point
of difference between them and other
denominations was not so much the
manner of performing the baptismal
rite as in their opposition to the bap-

tism of infants. Baptism, they held,
should be given only to those who have
been taught repentance and change of
life and the baptism of an unconscious
infant is in reality making a farce of
what should be a most solemn and
seriously considered covenant of the
individual with God. To those hold-
ing this belief, infant baptism is little
better than sacrilege, and is, as it was
expressed, "one of the great abomina-
tions of the Roman pontiff." Ana-
baptists, as they were called, were early
found among the settlers, and in 1646
the General Court decreed their ban-
ishment. Ten years earlier, in 1635,
Roger Williams had been obliged to go
beyond the jurisdiction to escape being
deported. Although the Charter of
1 69 1 granted toleration to the op-
pressed Baptists, they, with others,
were compelled to pay their full pro-
portion toward the support of the orth-
odox churches notwithstanding the
fact that they neither believed their
creed nor desired to attend their serv-
ices. Naturally the Baptists, as well
as the Episcopalians, Quakers, and
non-churchmen, made strenuous objec-
tion to paying parish rates. A very
comprehensive account of the long and
systematic contest waged by the Bap-
tists against these oppressive taxes and
restrictions is found in the History of
the Baptists in New England by Rev.
H. S. Burrage, D. D. It was not un-
til 1728 that any relief, even of partial
or temporary nature, was allowed.
Then an Act was passed exempting
from payment for support of orthodox
churches those who usually attended
the meetings of their respective so-
cieties and lived within five mhcs
of the place of such meeting.
This exemption was only tern-

CHURCH AND STATE

109

porary, and expired in 1773. The
Baptists had become strong in
numbers and in determination, and
from this time they urged a persistent
and uncompromising warfare for soul
liberty. Rather than pay taxes, which
they believed were wicked and unjust,
members of the denomination suffered
themselves to be distrained of goods
and property, and many, refusing to
pay, went to prison for conscience sake.
All New England, outside of Rhode
Island, compelled the payment of par-
ish taxes, and in all New England the
Baptists made resistance by peaceable
and lawful means. Court and Legis-
lative Records, of course, give only
those cases where legal contest was
made or petition presented. We find
that Joseph Moody, of Gorham, Maine,
having had his horse taken away, car-
ried his case by petition to the General
Court at Boston, but without avail.
John Emery, of York, was distrained
of his family pewter, but failed to have
it restored. In New Hampshire for a
while the same course was taken by
the authorities, as appears by an oc-
casional case where the party appealed
to the Courts from an irregular dis-
traint. The most vigorous enforce-
ment of the law obtained, as might be
supposed, in Massachusetts and in
Connecticut. The Warren Associa-
tion in Massachusetts as early as 1769
took these matters into consideration,
and from that time carried on an or-
ganized and determined effort for a
change of these laws, which they con-
sidered to be particularly oppressive.
A Committee was formed to collect
grievances, and they gathered a great
many accounts, still upon record, of
cases of hardship and confiscation im-
posed upon the poor brethren for the

support of the Standing Order. The
General Courts of Massachusetts and
Connecticut were besieged with re-
ports of wrongs inflicted in behalf of
the Orthodox Church and with peti-
tion for redress.

Down to the Revolutionary times
the agitation was kept up with increas-
ing force. When Samuel Adams was
declaiming that taxation without rep-
resentation is tyranny, Rev. Mr.
Backus, Chairman of the Baptist Com-
mittee on Grievances, wrote to him
with characteristic keenness "I fully
concur with your grand maxim," and
further, "I am bold in it, that taxes laid
by the British Parliament upon Amer-
ica are not more contrary to civil free-
dom than these taxes are to the very
nature of liberty of conscience."

During the Revolutionary War the
agitation for religious liberty went on
as occasion permitted. The laws,
however, remained, although the rigor
of their enforcement was largely
abated. It had become a contest for a
principle, not merely for the saving of
money, and they were determined not
to cease their efforts until the obnox-
ious laws were expunged from the
Statutes. Their field of influence
widened and they had a great follow-
ing. When the Constitution of the
United States was under discussion
they urged that the principle of soul
liberty be inserted in that instrument.
As it was originally adopted it con-
tained only the provision "No religious
test shall ever be required as a qualifi-
cation for any office of public trust un-
der the United States." The vote in
the Convention was close and they had
pretty nearly enough members of their
way of thinking to turn the scale. The
Constitution was finally adopted, but

110

CHURCH AND STATE

almost immediately twelve amend-
ments were added, and the first of
these contained the desired provision,
"Congress shall make no law respect-
ing an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exrrcise thereof."

The question of any union of Church
and State under the general govern-
ment was thus eliminated by the pro-
vision in the fundamental law, but New
England still held to the ancient cus-
tom. Indeed it seemed even to the
radical advocates of free institutions
that it was a question of morals, and its
abandonment a concession to the spirit
of infidelity engendered by the French
Revolution. The support of churches
by taxation had been a part of English
law from times long prior to the Ref-
ormation, and to deprive them of such
support seemed equivalent to the over-
throw of religion. The payment of
church rates came with none too much
of good will and it did not seem pos-
sible that voluntary contribution could
be obtained sufficient to keep churches
alive. The agitation was kept up and
gained ground continually. New
Hampshire had been a royal province,
and after the Revolution adopted a
constitution. In this it was provided
that no one should be taxed for the
support of any other denomination
than his own. This provision was so
awkward to enforce that after a short
time it became practically a dead letter,
and New Hampshire Churches were
obliged to learn that they could live
and prosper without compulsory con-
tribution.

Vermont was admitted to the
Union in 1791, and in spite of oppo-
sition her Constitution allowed taxa-
tion for the support of churches. The
tide of public sentiment, however, had

set the other way and in 1807 all such
statutes were repealed : Church and
State in Vermont were thus divorced,
no more to be united. Connecticut
still adhered to the old ways, but the
Baptists took the lead and others fol-
lowed in an increasing warfare of reso-
lutions, petitions, and remonstrances.
In spite of most strenuous opposition
from the favored churches, the new
Constitution adopted in 1818 contained
a provision, drafted by a Baptist Min-
ister, which terminated the legal right
of any one to compel contributions for
religious purposes.

Massachusetts then stood alone in
maintaining the system of supporting
religion by law, and her opposition of
what she considered modern degen-
eracy was steadfast. Concessions were
made to those who protested against
church rates, but the Statute was up-
held. In 1820 a convention met for
the purpose of revising the State Con-
stitution. Daniel Webster was a mem-
ber. A determined effort was made
to eradicate the clauses which author-
ized assessments for religious pur-
poses, which Mr. Webster opposed.
He was content, he declared, with the
Constitution of Massachusetts as it
was. The amendment failed, but a
change of four votes would have given
it a passage. Though defeated, the
friends of the measure were not dis-
heartened, and year after year the con-
test was continued. The District of
Maine became a separate State in 1820,
and her Constitution provided that all
religious Societies, "shall at all times
have the exclusive right of electing
their public teachers and contracting
with them for their support and main-
tenance."

In 1833 the Massachusetts Legisla-

THE WITCH'S CURSE

111

ture was induced to submit to popular
vote a constitutional amendment of the
form desired. It was ratified at the
polls. The long warfare for full re-
ligious liberty was ended. The last
stronghold had fallen. The old order
had changed and had given place to
new. Church and State were separate
in New England. The Puritan ideal
of a Commonwealth established and

maintained in righteousness by inex-
orable law had vanished and in its
place there stood the Church in its var-
ious forms untrammelled ; with all the
glorious possibilities of time and
eternity before it; and a secular
and separate state whose duty it
should be to keep secure for all its
people life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.

The Witch's Curse

A legend of an old Maine town

By James O. Whittemore

CLOSE by the country road on
the outskirts of the sleepy,
old seaport town of Bucks-
port, on the Penobscot
River, down in Maine, is a small fam-
ily cemetery. Within the enclosure,
with its high and somewhat ornate
iron fence, sleep the Bucks, the blue-
blooded and aristocratic clan which
first settled the town and bequeathed
to it their name — and a legend.

Of the many moss-grown tablets
and monuments by far the largest and
most imposing is a tall granite shaft
which stands close to the highway.
On one side is the inscription:

Col. Johnathan Buck
The Founder of Bucksport

A. D. 1762

Born in Haverhill, Mass.

1718.

Died March 18, 1795

On the other side is the single word
"BUCK" and also something not
wrought by the marble-worker. On
the smooth surface of the pedestal is

a curious outline, irregular, and de-
scribing that which can by no great:
effort of imagination be called the re-
semblance of a foot.

Some say that it is a foot, but they
are the superstitious people, who be-
lieve in the legend which has been cur-
rent in the town for more than half a
century.

Those who delight in perpetuating
this gloomy legend say that Colonel
Jonathan Buck was the leading spirit
of his day and generation and was a
very stern and harsh man. His word
was law in the settlement. He was
the highest in civil authority, and
once his decision given he was as im-
movable as the granite hills which
loom up on the northern horizon. He
was most Puritanical, and to him
witchcraft was the incarnation of blas-
phemy. Thus, so the legend goes,
when a certain woman was accused
of witchcraft, at the first murmurings
of the people, Colonel Buck ordered
her to be imprisoned, and later, after
the usual mere form of a trial, she was

112

THE WITCH'S CURSE

sentenced to be executed as a witch.
She pleaded with her judge for her
life, but as to a heart of stone.

The day of the execution came and
the condemned woman went to the
gallows, erected, according to tradi-
tion, on a rocky knoll directly across
the road from the site of the present
cemetery. As she went to her death
she cursed her judge with such terri-
ble imprecations that the people shud-
dered; but Colonel Buck stood un-
moved and made a sign to the officers
to hasten the arrangements. All was
ready and the hangman about to per-
form his grewsome duty, when the
woman turned to Colonel Buck and
raising one hand to heaven, as if to
direct her last words on earth, pro-
nounced this astounding prophecy:

"Jonathan Buck, listen to these
words, the last my tongue shall utter.
It is the spirit of the only true and
living God which bids me speak them
to you. You will soon die. Over

your grave they will erect a stone,
that all may know where the bones of
the mighty Jonathan Buck are crum-
bling to dust. But listen ! Listen all
ye people — tell it to your children and
your children's children — upon that
stone will appear the imprint of my
foot, and for all time long, long after
your accursed race has perished from
the earth, the people will come far and
near and the unborn generations will
say, 'There lies the man who mur-
dered a woman.' Remember well,
Jonathan Buck, remember well !"

Then she turned to her execution-
ers and in a moment all was over.

"The witch's curse," as it was called
and is to this day, was almost forgot-
ten until many years afterward, when
the monument was erected to the
memory of Bucksport's founder. The
shaft had been in position but a few
months when a faint outline was dis-
covered upon the panel of the pedestal
facing the highway. This outline
grew more and more distinct, until
some one made the startling discovery
that it was the outKne of a foot which
some supernatural draughtsman had
traced upon the granite.

The old legend was revived and the
news of its fulfilment spread like
wildfire. People came from miles
around to gaze and wonder. An at-
tempt was made to remove the stain
but all efforts tended only to bring
out the outline more boldly. The
stain or "fault" seemed to penetrate
to the very centre of the stone.

The hinges of the big cemetery gate
have creaked for the last time to ad-
mit a Buck. The last of the race has
been laid to rest beneath the oaks and
the maples and the setting sun throws
athwart the double row of grassy

THE LAW OF CONTRAST

113

mounds the shadow of the monument
of the once all-powerful Colonel as if
he still dominated the dead as, in life,
he did the living. And the same rays
light up that mysterious tracing held
up to the view of all that pass and
re-pass along the dusty turnpike. The
barefooted boy driving home the cows
pauses and peers between the iron
bars to gaze for the hundredth time,
as his father did before him. It is one
of the town's objects of interest for
visitors. Verily, the "witch's curse"
seems fulfilled to the letter. The im-
print is there to-day and no doubt will
be for a century to come, for the mon-
ument is of substantial grain.

More practical and matter-of-fact
people pooh-pooh the legend and call
attention to the historical discrepancy
between the date of the witchcraft era

The Buck Lot

and the regime of Colonel Buck. They
say that the tracing is entirely acci-
dental, a fault in the granite which
was either hidden by the makers or
developed after the monument was
in place, and that the legend was made
to fit the foot and not the foot to fulfil
the witch's curse.

But the foot is there.

The Law of Contrast

By Esther Kingsmill- Morgan

HAVE you ever studied con-
trast in mental develop-
ment? It is one of those
tiresome abstract affairs
which is made clear only by illustra-
tion ; this, by the way, is true of much
of the inexplicable in life. Although
creatures of emotion, we are only par-
tially awakened by that which we feel ;
we are philosophers of enormous pro-
portions when we are allowed to see
with the naked eye. In one moment I
can show you a picture which will
give you a grasp of the whole subject

of contrast in mental development.
You may then assume the melancholy
of the psychological philosopher and
divert your thoughts to steel-rimmed
spectacles, blue stockings, and the
amazing power of knowledge.

I sit each morning at my breakfast
table, and, peering through the win-
dow and over the way, weave fanta-
sies and dream of the mysteries and
possible mysteries connected with a
scarlet and white striped pole which
stands close to the opposite sidewalk.
It is the symbol of an artisan. At the

114

THE LAW OF CONTRAST

same moment the Parson has his head
buried in the palms of his hands and
his eyes fixed on the pages of a little
book spread open before him on the
white tablecloth. He is dreaming of
the mysteries and possible mysteries
hidden away in the Meditations of
Marcus Aurelius. I am practical :
the dear Parson is a Theorist, which
means that his mind can evolve some
great thought that my poor machine
has not the power even to compre-
hend. This knowledge, though stag-
gering, is an evidence that comparison
promotes humility and is an excellent
tonic for a weak and self-satisfied
mind. It is also an evidence that my
intellectual range hovers about the
dazzling barber's pole across the way.
Modesty is only another name for
knowing one's limit.

I share my dining-table with the
Parson, and by way of reciprocating,
he shares his thoughts with me. It is
scarcely a fair exchange. I extend
to him a material benefit and ex-
pect in return an intellectual recom-
pense. But gratitude is a great and
noble quality and must surely count
for much — even though it be not so
great as that quality of which modesty
is only another name.

* >K * *

This morning I was about to make
some commonplace remark when the
Parson suddenly looked up from his
book. The expression in his face in-
spired within me an extraordinary in-
terest in the tablecloth directly in a
line with my nose, and involuntarily
I began offering up a prayer of thanks-
giving that diversified humanity ex-
isted in the world and that the element
of hypocrisy was occasionally omitted
in the process of construction. Hav-

ing finished, I turned and looked
through the window. The barber's
children were dancing a sort of May-
pole Dance around the pole while an
artist was. endeavoring to re-decorate
the barber's symbol, in spite of jost-
lings and various leap-frog games. 1
began to compose a suitable poem for
the occasion, having due regard for all
the modern poet's ideas of rapid tran-
sit. I was using the artist as an ex-
ample of true art overcoming all ob-
stacles and rising to the heights of
sublimity. Suddenly the Parson in-
terrupted me (The world will say that
the Parson is a man who does the right
thing at the right time.) He com-
plained of having a poor night's rest,
a chill after his morning dip, and a
general attack of the nerves. When
these complications set in, we are tol-
erably sure of a change in the weather ;
when they are accompanied by a vol-
ume of Marcus Aurelius we may ex-
pect anything. The Parson opened
his book, looked up to give his order,
and then read a few pages. Marcus
was evidently tackling him from a hith-
erto unseen side, for, to my intense
surprise, he presently turned to me
abruptly and asked how much of life
I considered real and how much farce.
I made away with a couple of fried
eggs before I replied, in the hope that
they would chase the cobwebs from
my brain. Now as I am never- orig-
inal, my answer is not worthy of re-
peating. It occurs to me that much
waste time would be saved if this pro-
cedure were occasionally followed;
my seeming brilliancy is only bor-
rowed reflection, and if you have clear-
ly defined discriminating powers you
will observe many of my species in
every-day life; I pray you mark them

THE LAW OF CONTRAST

115

closely and pay no deference to the
passive moons of life whose light is
entirely borrowed.

The Parson, not satisfied with my
theories, began his breakfast and con-
tinued to read. I proceeded to grow
jealous and was filled with the same
feeling which would have taken pos-
session of me had the Parson been a
beautiful girl and Marcus a dastardly
villain who was making love to her.

"Do you think Aurelius and bacon
and eggs are congenial?" I began
bravely and bitterly.

"Do not be disrespectful," he an-
swered smiling.

"Pardon me, I forgot. You are
very great friends." I tried to be sar-
castic, but that is another accomplish-
ment beyond my powers. At times I
forget this and make a very great fool
of myself, but people tell me this is
not an uncommon failing. I attacked
the parson from another side.

"I am surprised that you, a minis-
ter of the Gospel, should defend a
pagan — an enemy to your faith."

"An enemy? In what way?" he
said, looking up with his characteristic
straightforward expression.

"In every way," I answered boldly.
He looked at me for a moment seri-
ously and then smiled.

"This is one of your side-bracks
which I have never before seen. Hu-
man nature is ever-varying and full of
surprises. I did not know that you
could so well assume a role in order to
make me companionable." He closed
his book and laid it almost tenderly on
the table, saying thoughtfully, while
his hand still rested on the cover,
"Poor old dreamer. What, my friend,
could surpass in human perfection
this wonderful pagan uprightness

combined with true christian consist-
ency?" I looked at him solemnly and
answered :

"Please let the matter stand until
you have a fair antagonist. In the
meantime, by way of diversion, be
good enough to allow me to repeat to
you the introductory verses on "The
Re-decorating of the Barber's Sym-
bol."

* * * *

My Spiritual Adviser has a clear
comprehension of the Law of Equi-
librium which accounts for his wonder-
fully well-balanced brain. He draws
a distinct line separating the material
from the spiritual "and therefore sees
nothing antagonistic between salvation
and cigars. He informed me once that
it was equally reasonable to connect
religion with the person who is ad-
dicted to eating peppermint during
the Athanasian Creed. I protested
that the peppermint person was more
guilty, because there was a larger
number of people adverse to the pep-
permint aroma than to the odor of a
good cigar. Furthermore I asserted
that it was my conviction that, given a
man with the aid of a good cigar to dis-
pel the clouds of uncertainty from his
brain, there is a very good chance of
guiding his reasoning powers in the
proper direction. The Parson confessed
that was one way of looking at it,
but decided, for the present, to confine
his smoking to an after-dinner cigar,
and leave the field open to the pepper-
mint person. Furthermore, the Par-
son is convinced that humor is legiti-
mate, that a hearty laugh is good for
the soul and finds an echo in heaven.

Now there is a Pious Transient in
the house who is an aggravation to
the spirit. She is continually tackling

116

1HE LAW OF CONTRAST

the Parson on what she calls " Outward
and visible signs." When she drifts
to what she picturesquely calls "the
symbol . of impiety" (smoking) the
Parson grows wrathy, by which I
mean that he speaks slowly and uses
extraordinarily long words. As a
rule, he is the essence of humility, and
has the true scholar's simplicity of ex-
pression.

"And have you really no qualms
about theatre-going?" said the Pious
Transient one day recently.

The Parson looked puzzled. He
goes occasionally to a play-house, be-
ing tolerably sure of what is going to
be presented and intending to profit
thereby. He is one of those philoso-
phers who believes that knowledge of
a profitable nature may be found in
every condition of life, and that a man
may take the hand of a little child and
be led into hitherto untrodden paths of
wisdom. He stood lost in thought for
a moment and then a light suddenly
dawned upon him.

"I understand, madam. You con-
sider that which would be proper for
my flock would be improper for their
leader?"

"But you are different, sir."

"Only in so far as I try to show the
way. They follow — and I follow with
them," and he bowed his head rever-
ently.

"But you are their example," per-
sisted madam.

The Parson interrupted her gently.

"Pardon me, I am not their example.
God forbid. I try only to hold before
them the great Example, and, do you
know, madam, who that really is?
He is one of great charity, and al-
though I daresay you doubt it, is tre-
mendously glad to find truth where

there was supposed to be all untruth —
or any small glint of light which may
be trying to peep out of dark places."
Now the Parson is a small man, and
when he. took a step closer to madam in
order to whisper into her ear, he found
it necessary to raise himself on his
tip-toes. He spoke in a very low voice,
and the words I caught sent a softer
light into madam's eyes. They were:
"greatest of these is charity."

*h *K *s* ***

I am looking at a picture which is
standing out in distinct outlines. It is
suspended in a strange mist hovering
above the chair where my friend the
Parson sits. As I look I see another
exemplification of the law of contrast,
and the thought comes to me that con-
trast in goodness and purity may be
only in quality, and may exist without
detracting in the smallest degree from
either. . . . The picture is that of
a dear old man clad in shining
broadcloth (if you look closely
you can see your reflection in
him.) A huge Bible is partly
hidden under one arm, his eyelids are
drooping and there is a plaintive note
of the sorrow of sin in his high-pitched
voice as he tells of the streets of gold
for the saved and the fires of hell for
the damned. There is a sweet senti-
ment hanging about him which is hid-
den away with all the dreams of our
childhood. He was narrow — decided-
ly narrow. Nevertheless, for some
strange reason, we should feel very
restful to find him standing at our
bedsides when the breath is beginning
to come in strange and foreboding
fl titterings — when we are nearing that
Future for which he tried to prepare
us.

His narrowness will be forgotten

THE MILLS OF GOD

117

and his voice will sound very sweet as
he ushers us on through the gathering
mists and leaves us on the threshold of
that Country of which he loved to
preach. . . . Drawing his faded
book from beneath his faded
sleeve he will open it and begin
to read, and it' will all seem
very real, for since infancy we shall
not remember having seen him once
without the Book. But there is no
doubt of it, he was partly ethereal — ■
too far removed from human sins to be
companionable, much as he might de-
sire it. He talked sweetly to us of the
Fatherhood of God and the Brother-
hood of Man, but his message came to
us through the clouds, from the hal-
lowed pinnacle on which he deservedly

stood. We buried it deep in our
hearts and dreamed about it far into
the following day ; but that was the
end, for then we awoke.

Now the Parson is of the earth,
earthly. At the same time he has fanned
the Divine Spark within his breast
until it is a blazing torch, exemplify-
ing human possibilities as linked with
the divine in man. He is an example
of moderation and good-fellowship
and is wonderfully well adapted to the
saving of the twentieth century soul,
for he appeals to our reason, while the
dear old man with the faded book
sought only our hearts, which at best
are unsatisfactory organs and have a
curious habit of concealing themselves
from spiritual advisers.

The Mills of God

By Charles Stuart Pratt

THE private papers of the
late Prof. Thornton, of
Banvard College, came
duly into my hands last
fall. Prof. Rosecroft Thornton was
my uncle, and after several bequests
to scientific societies, and a liberal
endowment of the botanical profes-
sorship which he himself had held for
half a century, he had made me his
residuary legatee.

Among the . accumulated manu-
scripts of his long life, I came upon
a sealed packet, with this inscription :

TO MY NEPHEW.

To be opened after my decease,
and then published, or destroyed, as

his judgment shall decree — provid-
ed, in the former alternative,
that the chief personage of the
narrative, the Lady, shall also
have passed beyond the reading,
and beyond the comment of readers.

The narrative thus committed to
my care was so extraordinary in cir-
cumstance, so intimate in revelation,
that I long hesitated between publica-
tion and destruction. In deciding at
length to make public so private a
document, I am still haunted by a
feeling that I may be indiscreet.

The Lady is no longer living.

The manuscript bears the date of
1880.

I have not ventured to change so

118

THE MILLS OF GOD

much as a single word of my uncle's
strange story. I have suppressed no
sentence. Here it stands in full.

Years may elapse, my dear nephew,
before you read what I am now about
to write — but the time has come to set
down what some day I wish you to
know.

I have never married — yet a ro-
mance has filled my life, and kept my
heart young. For forty years I have
loved a noble Lady — the Lady of the
inscription you will have just read.
No year for forty years has passed
without our meeting, often daily for
weeks — yet I never declared my love,
and only once was the declaration im-
minent.

Last summer, among the Swiss
Alps, the drama of our lives reached
its denouement. The closing scene
which will end only with her death
and mine, still plays its after-glow
over our waning lives. It is this
drama, my dear nephew, this one
phase of my life that is unknown to
you, yet the very essential and soul
of that life, which I shall now make
move before you.

All students of the Alps, and of
Alpine phenomena, first lay laurels on
the grave of De Saussure. His ex-
tensive explorations were made near
the end of the eighteenth century —
the last volume of his monumental
record was published in 1796, and he
himself died in the last year of the
century.

After sixty years without a suc-
cessor, in 1839 James David Forbes
began his climbs and observations in
the Alps, and became the pioneer of
modern mountaineering. From Prof.
Forbes, indeed, dates that outdoor

movement which has made the Al-
pine region the great health and pleas-
ure resort of the world. At that par-
ticular time, too, our own Agassiz
was making his famous studies of
Alpine glaciers. It was from their
movements and their debris that he
deduced, and in 1840 announced, his
grand generalization — that the drift,
spread all over northern Europe and
America, was due to the grinding and
pushing of the vast sliding ice-sheets
of the glacial epoch.

In that year so memorable to the
world of science, in 1840, I completed
my college course at Banvard. Al-
most immediately I went abroad, to
pursue the post-graduate studies
which were to fit me for the professor-
ship I had in view. Foremost among
the young men of that class of 1840
stood Charles Henry Kingsley — my
close companion, my dearest friend,
the very brother of my heart. Kings-
ley had made a brilliant record in
physics, especially in geology, and
went directly from Banvard to a
position with the U. S. Coast Survey.

When Prof. Agassiz's conclusions
were made public I was in Norway,
and shortly after I received a letter
from Kingsley, urging me to meet
him in Switzerland. » He wrote with
much enthusiasm of Agassiz and his
work, and went on to outline certain
allied and certain diverse theories of
his own, winding up with the state-
ment that he had resigned from the
Coast Survey and was coming over
to test them by personal studies of
the Alpine glaciers. I was then
gathering data for my best-known
book, "The Survival of Arctic Flora
in the South/' and as the glacier re-
gions of the Alps were a promising

THE MILLS OF GOD

119

field for research, I hailed the pros-
pect of so happily combining work
and pleasure.

I spent the winter in the university
at Leipsic, and it was toward the end
of May when Kingsley wired me
from Paris : "En route for the gla-
ciers. Meet me at Belmat."

Now I was not sure I had ever so
much as heard of Belmat, and when
at last I climbed to the little inn, hang-
ing with its tiny attendant chalets on
the greening mountain-side, I won-
dered how my friend had found out
so isolated a spot.

Kingsley was a man of singular
bodily perfectness. I well remember
how in the old college days the
eyes of the men would follow him,
in admiration and pure delight,
as he made his way through the
gymnasium or stripped for the
swimming-tank. It was not a mat-
ter of build and contour of muscle
merely, but rather as if the body
were the outward expression of a
singular perfectness within. As Kings-
ley greeted me that day in front
of the Belmat inn, and I delighted in
him anew, I noted a change in the
man. There was a suppressed fervor
thrilling through him, a new light in
his dark eyes.

We had been stretched on the slope
in front of the inn for half an hour,
exchanging chapters of our private
histories up to date, and Kingsley was
just launching out upon his glacier
theories, when he stopped short and
turned to one side.

I turned, too, and beheld, emerg-
ing from dark evergreens, a radiant
figure.

"Oh," said I ; "I begin to under-
stand."

"You are right, Thornton," replied
Kingsley; "that is why I am here.
But, come, and be introduced."

So I met the Lady of my life. I
can recall no word she said — nor
could I when she had passed like a
vision into the old inn. Yet in that
interval I had become conscious of a
pervading pure presence, like the
sudden break of sunrise. I was
aware that I had touched the hand of
the one supreme woman in the world,
a woman the noblest man might love
and die for — aye, might live and suf-
fer for — yet, too, a woman of such
physical superbness as might incite an
unscrupulous man to crime for the
sake of possession.

It transpired that Madeline Win-
throp had come to that out-of-the-way
spot with her mother, who was an in-
valid, and who had been ordered
there by a distinguished Parisian
specialist.

Kingsley made no secret, with me,
of his devotion to Miss Winthrop.
He had met her at a reception at the
American legation in Paris, and, as he
frankly said, had shaped his course
into the Alps to coincide with hers.
With that confidence which the mas-
terly man has in his own destiny,
Kingsley apparently never questioned
the outcome of his suit; to him it
was as inevitable as the rise and set
of sun, or the consummation of the
courses of nature. Somehow I did
not share this feeling of my friend
with my usual sympathetic enthusi-
asm, although I could not but confess
they were magnificently mated; and
presently I became aware that my
friend himself did not quite hold his
old place in my regard. I do not
think I loved him less, or held him

120

THE MILLS OF GOD

less high — but only that my heart had
placed another still higher.

On the evening of one of these
early days at Belmat, our quiet was
broken by a new arrival — a handsome
man, with a dash of the sportsman in
dress and manner. The name he
wrote with a bold hand in the little
book of registry was Louis Noel
Beauregarde. I learned later that he
was the son of a rich Louisiana
planter. It seemed that like Kingsley
he had met Miss Winthrop in Paris ;
indeed, at the same reception at the
American minister's. He had come,
ostensibly, to hunt chamois, yet I
could not put down a suspicion that
he had come also to hunt the woman
he had met at the American legation
in Paris.

But if the solitude of Belmat held
a beautiful woman, it also held a
glacier. Far up on the mighty slopes
of the Oberhorn, where two great
ridges gathered within their arms the
snowfalls of winter, the glacier had
its lair. Thence, down the dark wind-
ing gorges, moved the ponderous
miles of the white monster, like some
vast mythical dragon through the
dusks of antiquity — moved with the
imperceptible, unceasing, resistless
force of eternity bearing down on the
lowlands of time.

After a week of reconnoitring,
Kingsley plunged into his researches
with all the energy of his nature. He
examined the debris piled up in the
old terminal moraines, and the abra-
sion of the valley sides, for data as to
the former extent and erosion of the
glacier. He studied at the glacier
foot the marks of its advance in win-
ter, and its melting back in the heat
of summer. He probed the neve

fields at the source to discover the
secrets of the transition from snow
to solid ice. He watched the opening
and closing of crevasses. He set
stakes across the glacier at various
points, to determine the rapidity of
movement, and the relative movement
in straight courses, around curves, on
levels, and down declines.

Kingsley had what I may call a
scientific imagination. From the rec-
ords of glacial phenomena, and the
theories of glacial formation and
movement, of De Saussure and Forbes
and Agassiz, and his own observa-
tions, he reached conclusions closely
allied to those so ably demonstrated
by Prof. Tyndall twenty years later.
Had his researches and conclusions
reached publication, along with those
famous names would stand to-day the
name of Charles Henry Kingsley.
But his records and notes were never
written out, for reasons that will pres-
ently appear ; but, as will also ap-
pear, they were not without at least
one momentous result.

Meantime M. Beauregarde's hunt-
ing grew intermittent. I observed
that the chamois were less attractive
on the days when Kingsley was
far away on the upper glacier. I
observed too that on those days I my-
self found the possible survivals of
Arctic flora less alluring. Kingsley's
sky however was cloudless. His happi-
ness in love and fruitful work was at
the flood. His enthusiasm over his
glacier problems was contagious.
His reports were the looked-for event
of each day, and presently the break-
fast table became the scene of lively
speculation, as to whether the stakes
that marked the glacial movement
would measure off fourteen or fifteen

THE MILLS OF GOD

121

inches within the next twenty-four
hours.

For some days we had been plan-
ning an excursion to the head of the
glacier, and thence to the peak of the
Oberhorn. It was a considerable
climb to the foot of the glacier, and a
greater climb up the seven miles of
rock-hemmed valley filled half a mile
wide and perhaps a thousand feet
deep with the ponderous river of ice;
and so it was proposed to camp over
night in Kingsley's hut on the edge
of the upper snow-field, and take the
ascent of the peak the following day.

On that memorable morning of the
twentieth of June, 1841, we started
from the Belmat inn in high spirits,
Miss Winthrop, Kingsley, M. Beaure-
garde, and I, with Kingsley's helpers,
and several guides for the ascent of
the Oberhorn peak.

As we planned to visit Kingsley's
various points of observation on the
return trip, we pushed ahead quite
steadily until about noon, keeping to
the marginal moraines and the edge
of still unmelted winter snow drifted
in between the glacier and the valley
side. Then we reached the terrific
ice-fall, where, cut by intersecting
crevasses, the ice tumbled in chaos
down a quarter mile of precipice.
Here we had to make a detour, and
strike the glacier again above the fall.
Snow still lingered in shaded spots on
the mountain-side, but green grass
was piercing up through the dry tufts
of old growth, and bilberry bushes
were in bud.

Under the very drip of snow, I
came upon the glowing gentiana bo-
varica; and then, within a miniature
crystal palace, where the sun had
melted the snow from under an icy

crust, Miss Winthrop found a clump
of androsace glacialis- As she rose
with a handful of the bright pink-
flowers, we men held our breath at a
pretty spectacle. A butterfly, the
magnificent Pamassius Apollo, with
its transparent white wings dashed
with scarlet and set with jet-rimmed
ocelii, hovered about her, dipped to
the flowers, alighted for an instant on
her hand, and then took its swift un-
certain flight off over the glacier.

"Blessed among butterflies," mur-
mured Kingsley, as his eyes followed
the airy visitant; and two others of
the party could have echoed that little
rhapsody.

Early in the afternoon we struck
out upon the glacier itself, having
reached a point, some four miles from
its lower end, where it was fairly
smooth travelling, and comparatively
free from dangerous crevasses. As
Miss Winthrop was growing tired
from the unusual toil of rough climb-
ing, Kingsley proposed that after
rounding a point a little ahead, which
would afford a shield from the chill-
ing wind, we should halt for rest.
Meantime he would switch off to a
crevasse he was studying, and then
join us in the course of a half hour.
As we came into shelter above the
bend, and made Miss Winthrop com-
fortable on a pile of luggage, she
suddenly asked what had become of M.
Beauregarde. I had been absorbed
in assisting Miss Winthrop, and in
watching out for a suitable halting-
place, and had not missed him. No
one recalled having seen him after
turning the bend, and we finally con-
cluded he had remained behind with
Kingsley.

The half hour went by, and a little

122

THE MILLS OF GOD

later one of the guides announced
that the men were coming. I too had
been watching, and only one man had
appeared, nor had the other come into
view when M. Beauregarde walked
leisurely up to us. In reply to our
questions, he said he had remained be-
hind to visit the crevasse with Kings-
ley; but that after parting from us
Kingsley complained of a sudden in-
disposition, and decided to return
to Belmat, insisting that the party
should go on according to the origi-
nal plan.

"But why did you leave him to re-
turn alone? Why did you not go
with him?" questioned Miss Win-
throp, a tinge of indignation in her
tone.

"I did propose it," replied M.
Beauregarde, "but Kingsley asserted
he was familiar with the way, and
there was no need. He positively re-
fused to let me accompany him, and
insisted that the pleasure of the part}/
was not to be further broken in
upon."

M. Beauregarde added that Kings-
ley had intimated we should probably
find him at the hut on our return
from the Oberhorn peak, and that he
would then personally conduct us
down the glacier, and exhibit his sci-
entific work upon it.

We at last concluded to go on up
the glacier. The leadership of the
party now devolved upon me, and
presently M. Beauregarde fell behind
with Miss Winthrop, ostensibly, I be-
lieve, to examine a curious ice-table
a little to one side. As they rejoined
us later on, I noted a disturbed look
on Miss Winthrop's face, and could
fancy an uncomfortable flash in M.
Beauregarde's eyes. Twilight was

falling when we reached the hut, and
the vast glacier stretched away pallid
and boundless through the dusk as we
made camp for the night.

In the morning we found snow had
fallen; only a few inches, but the
clouds hung heavy and threatening,
and the guides refused to consider the
climb up the Oberhorn. It was final-
ly decided to go back to Belmat. The
thought of Kingsley made this a wel-
come decision for at least two of us.
The snow, which had been hesitant
all the dreary way down, began to
fall, in slow solemn flakes, as we
crossed the open space in front of the
inn. Our host stood in the door, in
evident surprise at our premature re-
turn. Suddenly he called out,

"Where's Kingsley? Have you
left him up the glacier?"

Had a thunderbolt fallen, we could
not have stayed more instantly in our
tracks. Before I could move or
speak, M. Beauregarde stood by me.
He spoke quickly. "We must go
back at once," he said, "with a party
of rescue. Kingsley must have had
some accident. Should we not find
him, I could never forgive myself for
allowing him to start back alone."

Every man within reach volun-
teered for the search- With a rapidity
incredible outside regions of sudden
and dire emergency, the needed sup-
plies, ropes, ice axes, lanterns, were
gathered, and in thirty minutes we
were on our backward way.

That night climb up the precipitous
sides and ragged glacier edge of the
Oberhorn will never be effaced from
memory. As the darkness settled
down the wind rose, and the snow
swirled about us, and the lantern
lights flared, and cast weird distorted

THE MILLS OF GOD

123

shadows. And everywhere, like the
pervading spirit of the storm, I saw
the disembodied solemnity and despair
of Miss Winthrop's face as she
watched us depart from the inn door.
A rosy dawn was breaking over the
mountains when at last we arrived at
the point above the ice- fall where
Kingsley had turned back. At inter-
vals all night we had halted and lis-
tened, and shouted and fired guns, and
again listened with straining ears for
some cry, some human sound, to come
out of the stormy darkness. No
answer had gladdened us.

We now separated and minutely
searched the immediate neighbor-
hood, and some distance down along
the glacier edge. The snow had oblit-
erated any possible traces there might
have been, and there was no clew.
Then, on the bare chance that some
scientific afterthought might have
taken Kingsley back for another look
at the crevasse he was observing and
measuring daily, we returned . to the
glacier. The drifting snow had
bridged the narrower chasms, and
progress was slow and dangerous, as
a step might at any moment precipi-
tate one into a crevasse hundreds of
feet sheer down, with only the rope
running from waist to waist as a safe-
guard.

All that day the rescue party pur-
sued its search, and all the night that
followed, and all the next day; and
when, hope gone, we dragged our way
back to the Belmat inn, Miss Win-
throp stood watching in the gathering
gloom as when, forty-eight hours be
fore, we had started not all unhope-
fully away. There was no need for
question or answer; our reluctant
feet and our faces told all ; and before

we reached the door she turned back
and passed from our sight.

As the days moved by, M. Beaure-
garde resumed his hunting. Miss
Winthrop attended her mother with a
perhaps tenderer solicitude. I went
off again on all-day tramps after sur-
vivals of Arctic flora.

One morning Miss Winthrop sur-
prised me by asking to borrow Kings-
ley's scientific notes and record?,
which had naturally come into my
keeping until such time as I could
take them to his relatives at home;
and during the next few days she
frequently consulted me on points not
clear to her. I was still more sur-
prised, later in the summer, when one
of my botanic excursions took me up
the glacier, to find that under her
direction one of Kingsley's assistants
was continuing certain of his studies
and observations, particularly those
touching crevasses and glacial move-
ment. Delicacy however forbade my
mentioning the matter to Miss Win-
throp, and I naturally credited her ac-
tion solely to an affectionate sentiment.

With the opening of the fall term
at Banvard, I was to enter upon my
duties as Professor of Botany, and so
at the end of summer I reluctantly re-
turned to America. Miss W7inthrop
and her mother were to go down into
Italy for the winter.

In the spring I learned that the
Winthrops had returned to Belmat;
and when the long summer vacation
set me free I need hardly say that I
took steamer for the Old World, and
was soon at Belmat too, taking up
again the researches necessary to com-
plete my book on ''The Survival of
Arctic Flora in the South."

Perhaps I should not have been

124

THE MILLS OF GOD

surprised to find that M. Beauregarde
had arrived a few days before me.
As on the preceding summer, he was
hunting chamois. And again that
unallayed suspicion whispered to me
that he was also hunting other game;
it whispered, too, however unjustly,
that the motive was not different from
that which moved him to scruple at
nothing to possess the fastest yacht,
or to put in his stables the finest horse-
flesh that trod the turf of two hemi-
spheres. Yet I could not but admire
the delicate reticence of his manner
toward Miss Winthrop; it was beyond
criticism, as was her own reserved
courtesy toward him and toward all
others.

Near the end of the summer, I
fancied an unbending of that reserve
in her meetings with me ; and I deter-
mined to say to her what my heart
had been repeating over and over
daily and hourly since I had first seen
her emerging radiantly from the
gloom of evergreens. Hence it was
not without design that, on a day
when M. Beauregarde was absent, I
invited her to a little excursion after
chrysanthemum Alpinus, which I had
found whitening a slope of glacial
debris.

But at the first intimation of my
purpose, Miss Winthrop stopped me
with a quick earnestness. "My
friend," said she, "do not speak — do
not ask. I loved your comrade
Kingsley. I love him to-day and eter-
nally. Let us be friends, drawn close
by our mutual love for the man who
must forever separate us."

So, as I have already recorded, my
iove for the Lady of my life was never
declared.

Years went by, five, ten, twenty,

thirty, almost forty. And all these
years the pervading pure presence,
which, standing by the side of Kings-
ley, came to me like the sudden break
of sunrise, has shaped my life, the real
inner life. All these years we have
been friends — she has been my friend,
and I have been her friend — and only
in the sacred secret consciousness of
my soul have I been her lover.

After almost forty years, Miss
Winthrop remarked to me last spring-
that she was going to Switzerland for
the summer — to Belmat. The words
were spoken simply, quietly, and yet,
after almost forty years of close ac-
quaintance, I could not but give some
credence to my feeling that they were
spoken with a subtile significance.

My book, "The Survival of Arctic
Flora in the South," had been for
some time out of print, and a new
edition was called for. It seemed op-
portune that in its preparation I
should revisit the Alpine glaciers, and
review the field in the light of la-
ter knowledge. I will not pretend to
deny that, even without this incentive,
I should have followed Miss Winthrop,
It was inevitable, for in Belmat, last
summer, as I have said, the drama of
my life reached its denouement.

To be again at Belmat was like re-
living a forgotten cycle of life. The
mountains and the glacier, the inn and
the chalets, were the same, only
touched with the gray of time, and
subdued by the seriousness of life. I
am not sure but I took it as a matter
of course that even M. Beauregarde
was there — and still hunting chamois.
But as the summer wore away, I be-
came conscious of a change in Miss
Winthrop, which grew and deepened
and possessed her being. That perfect

1HE MILLS OF GOD

125

poise of mind and body, which had
been so like Kingsley's seemed on the
verge of catastrophe. She appeared to
be restlessly waiting, restlessly heark-
ening, as for the coming of a messen-
ger of life, or of death — her face
forever in transition between pro-
found depression and profound exal-
tation.

One day I had been on a long climb
up the Oberhorn — it was the day I
made my great discovery, the day I
found that unique flower, the rose-
colored edelweiss, the dream and de-
spair of Alpine climbers ever since —
the flower I named for the Lady of my
life, and which is described in the last
edition of my book.

That night Madeline Winthrop met
me as I entered the inn. She did not
speak, nor did I — nor could I — I could
only stand and behold the woman I
loved, transfigured. After a moment
she reached out her hand, in which
lay a small red book.

"Rosecroft, read the inscription,"
said she.

I started. It was the first time she
had so spoken my name ; and though
1 saw in an instant that she had
spoken it unconsciously, I still thanked
God. I took the small red book
from her hand in a daze of bewildered
recognition. I turned the cover — I
needed not to read the inscription — it
was in my own handwriting — it was
addressed to Charles Henry Kingsley,
and bore the date of 1841.

"Why — this I gave Kingsley — at
New Year's, forty years ago ! How —
where — it is impossible!" I cried.

"It is quite possible — it is so," re-
plied Miss Winthrop. "Take it to
your room, and read the record under
the date of June twenty — "

"June twenty! Why, that — that
was the day Kingsley disappeared !"
. "Take it to your room," repeated
Miss Winthrop, "and read the record
under June twenty — then come to
me;" and with a seraphic smile she
turned away.

While the pink edelweiss withered,
uncared for, I sank into a chair, and
opened the small red book, and read,
read on, breathlessly on, read to the
very end that message from the dead
— that message which, half a lifetime
after ' my comrade's departure, came
like a veritable voice out from the
voiceless unknown.

*•• - '-"^

"Why I, Charles Henry Kingsley,
write these words — why I write at all
— I hardly know — since mortal eye
will never read. . . . Yet what may man
do, who would see, would feel in some
tangible way, the words his heart has
longed and waited for, his whole be-
ing existed for — and which, too late,
have come to him as a mystic con-
sciousness ! Too late ? Nay, death
with those words in my soul were bet-
ter than life without. . . . And what
may man do, with the resistless spirit
of justice roused within him and de-
manding the proclamation of crime —
even though that proclamation be but
to the unretributive ice of the glacier !
. . . should I say, rather, to the God
of the glacier ? In truth, I am making
deposition before the bar of God. . . .
Is this coherent? ... I will begin at
the beginning. ... A brief while ago,
I was on the earth, in the sun, with
the living. Now, half a thousand feet
down in a chasm of the glacier, I am
already in touch with the dead. . . .
I would Rosecroft might know I did
not meet disaster through weakness,

126

THE MILLS OF GOD

or recklessness. . . . When I left
Thornton, Miss Winthrop, and the
others, I expected to rejoin them
shortly, above the bend. As I struck
off across the glacier, to the crevasse
I had been daily observing, M. Beau-
re garde went with me. While we were
picking our way over the ice, he
evinced an unusual interest in my
work. As we stood on the brink of
the chasm, and I was telling him how
the crevasse had opened and how it
was now closing, he struck me a blow
in the back which hurled me headlong
into the abyss. ... I must have been
stunned by concussion with the ice.
When I regained consciousness I
found myself at this terrific depth, my
feet wedged immovable, and with
barely width above to move my arms.
As I have said, it is an old crevasse,
now slowly closing. With the more
rapid surface movement of the glacier,
the chasm, which was perpendicular at
the start, now leans in the direction of
the foot of the glacier; hence, instead
of being dashed down to instant death,
I had, after striking the lower side,
slid down its inclined plane, with a
velocity regulated by the roughness of
the surface, until the wedge-shaped
opening became too contracted for
further progress. . . . Far, far up
through the azure twilight, at what
seemed an immeasurable height, I
could see a line of blue living light.
No sound from that distant world of
activity reached me in these depths of
dead silence. I shouted — knowing the
while how vain all effort was. I had
no expectation of rescue- I knew that
my murderer would allay, or mislead,
any anxieties or suspicions that
might arise, until search would be
fruitless. . . . How long I had been

unconscious I could not measure, but
I had been keenly alive for some time,
when, suddenly, I heard voices. No,
not heard, for it was not sound audi-
ble to the outward ear, but I was
cognizant of voices — I felt them with-
in my brain — as one deaf, with his
hand touching an instrument, knows
the melody played, through his own
bodily vibrations. It was thus I heard
voices — the voices of Louis Noel
Beauregarde and Madeline Winthrop !
. . . Hallucination? No. I am a
scientific man. I have been testing
the sound-transmitting power of
glacier ice. I know that somewhere,
far up and away on the glacier, at
some favorable point, by a crevasse,
or where sound was concentrated by
the curved support of an ice-table,
perhaps, the words I heard, or felt,
were really spoken. . . . And I know
the agony of a Prometheus bound. I
know too a joy that is inexpressible.
Held in these inexorable depths, I
heard the lips of my murderer speak
lying words to the woman I loved. I
heard his persuasions and insinua-
tions. I heard a noble woman's an-
swers. I heard those last questionings
of audacity: "Do you love Kingsley?
Will you marry that man?" And I
heard those dauntless replies : "I do
love Kingsley. And I shall marry
Kingsley, when he asks me." . . .
Madeline — Madeline ! "When he
asks me" — as if my heart had not been
asking, momently, ever since I first be-
held you — as if my every thought and
word and deed had not been pleading
until their subtile pressure should gain
me assurance to speak the words !
. . . And now, though never more
my lips shall speak to her, I have the
answer. It makes me content — al-

THE MILLS OF GOD

127

most — to die. . . . The slant of this
old crevasse lets in longer the light of
the westering sun — but it is now
growing dark — I can barely see the
page as I write — and why do I write?
. . . Just now, a faint fanning broke
this abysmal silence, and my uplifted
eyes saw a butterfly, glorious in white
and scarlet, fluttering down through
the gloom. With no sign of fear, it
alighted on my hand, and there re-
mained— like some devoted soul leav-
ing the world behind and rejoicing in
a death of ministration. Is this senti-
ment? Perhaps. ... By and by I
perceived the butterfly was lifeless,
from the glacier cold. I laid it be-
tween the leaves of my diary. And
then I knew it was the butterfly that
earlier in the day had hovered about
Madeline, and alighted on her hand.
My lips went to the wings that had
touched her. Brave-winged spirit
that forsook the world for me! He
dies with me — and who dare say he
shall not rise with me on the day of
my resurrection ! . . . Far, far up I
catch the rosy light of sunrise — the
last I shall know. This is an old
crevasse, and it is closing steadily. I
am testing in my own person the
glacier theories of plasticity and rege-
lation. Irony of fate ! My feet and
limbs are already shut in by the re-
uniting sides of the crevasse. I can
barely move my arms for writing. . . .
As the hours go on I shall, I well
know, be enfolded, imbedded, in the
solid ice. . . . But I shall not know.
... I recognize the benumbing chill
that has been stealing through me all
the night — the drowsy overpowering
of the will — it is the somnolence that
ushers in the death-sleep of the
frozen. . . . What if ... A strange,

sweet thought is vaguely shaping in
my mind. ... I cannot quite take
hold upon it. . . . What if . . ."

Still the rose-pink edelweiss with-
ered on my table, uncared for, forgot-
ten. I did not even see it as I passed
swiftly out of the room to go to Miss
Winthrop. When I entered, with the
small red book in my nervous hold,
her head was bowed over her hands.
As it lifted, I knew there were kisses
on her lips — for in her hands lay a
butterfly, a butterfly glorious in white
and scarlet.

"It is so like Kingsley," said I, "no
word of pain, or terror, or fear of
death. The saneness and veracity are
beyond question."

"Yes," replied Miss Winthrop, tak-
ing the small red book, and folding
the butterfly within its leaves, — "yes>
it is all true, all true. And now," she
added slowly, "now is the day of
resurrection."

I started. I looked at her, standing
in the dim-lit room, yet transfigured
by a light that was not all of earth. I
did not understand. I stood uncer-
tain. I thought the shock had been
too great.

"But where — how?" I began,
touching the book in her hand- Then,
before she could answer, the thought
of M. Beauregarde came in a flash.
"The assassin !" I cried, and turned
to the door.

"Stay !" said Miss Winthrop swiftly,
yet calmly and sternly, as one holding
in her hand the meting out of justice.
"Do not seek M. Beauregarde. I
have arranged that you shall see him
in the morning — but not here."

Then she named the place of meet-
ing, where we two should stand face

128

THE MILLS OF GOD

to face with the murderer ; and I went
back to my room marvelling much.

In the early dawn, Miss Winthrop
and I passed out of the sleeping inn.
The night hush was yet unbroken, and
in silence we threaded the winding
paths that led along and up the lower
slopes of the Oberhorn.

Presently the glacier uplifted be-
fore us its vast sweep of gray-white
ice, reflecting the rose-lights of sun-
rise ; and as we came to the banks of
the turbid glacier stream, flowing
milk-white in the shade, the sun itself,
poising an instant on the shoulder of
the mountain, rose into the amber sky.
We had come at length to a mighty
cliff of ice, fractured and fallen
from the melting foot of the glacier.
As we turned its lower corner, we
stood face to face with — M. Beaure-
garde !

The man had started forward
eagerly, but fell back — he had not ex-
pected more than one to meet him at
that trysting-place.

"I will see M. Beauregarde alone,"
said Miss Winthrop simply, motion-
ing me to stay, and leading the way
around the upper corner of the great
glacial fragment, toward the face of
the glacier itself.

M. Beauregarde followed.

I stood, and waited, wondering.

I heard low words, in tones that
thrilled, and chilled. Then the terri-
ble tension broke — an awful cry rent
the air, a pistol shot rang.

I sprang forward, my fingers clutch-
ing for the throat of the double mur-
derer.

I stopped in my tracks.

A figure lay at my feet, sightless
eyes stared up from a face of fear,
and the yet black hair of the temple

was crimsoned with blood — the self-
shed blood of M. Beauregarde.

Half-dazed, I turned to Miss Win-
throp. She stood silent, moveless, but
with the awful majesty of an accusing
angel — one hand holding the small red
book at her heart, the other out-
stretched and pointing to the face of
the glacier.

My eyes followed that commanding
hand, and beheld — beheld the miracle
of the resurrection !

Another had kept that sunrise tryst !

Within the transparent face of the
glacier stood Charles Henry Kingsley!

Dead those forty years, in the slow
miracle of nature he yet stood before
us, dead, but unchanged.

One white hand only broke the
sheer front of the glacier — the hand
that for forty years had held the retri-
bution of justice, and the deliverance
of love !

The ending of my uncle's narrative
is abrupt. It is partly so-, perhaps, be-
cause he was aware that his later life
was known to me, and something of his
delicate devotion to Miss Winthrop.

He knew, too, that my scientific
training would fill in gaps. When
Miss Winthrop borrowed of my uncle
Kingsley's recorded observations she
followed them out and accurately fore-
cast the future; the daily move-
ment of the Oberhorn glacier in-
dicates a yearly progress of about five
hundred feet, or a mile in ten years,
requiring forty years for the chasmal
ice which had engulfed Kingsley to
bear its solemn secret down the four
miles to the place of revelation.

Compare Prof. Tyndall's " The Forms of Water," pp.
57. 58, giving a brief account of the entombing of three
guides swept into a crevasse by an avalanche in 1820,
whose bodies reappeared more than forty years later at the
end of the Glacier\des Bossons. — Editor.

W til j

;

■

■ : \

1 i ! 1 i |

I 1 ^

ifi

•

The Brattle Organ

New England Magazine

New Series

OCTOBER, 1902

Vol XXVII No. 2

The Massachusetts Institute of
Technology

By James Phinney Munroe

IT requires only slight study of
the history of New England in
the second quarter of the nine-
teenth century to see that the
pressing economic need of that time
was for men specially educated to deal
with the changing conditions of manu-
facturing and commerce. The grow-
ing use of steam as a motive power
was revolutionizing the industrial
world; and manufacturers and mer-
chants, trained in the college classics
or taught in the harder school of ex-
perience, found themselves seriously
handicapped. Many of them, fully
aware of the disadvantage under
which they labored with these new
and complex problems, were seeking
with vigor and open-mindedness
the best remedy. Especially were
those of Massachusetts — a state de-

pendent almost wholly upon manu-
facturing and commerce — alive to the
necessity of a different education for
their young men and anxious to estab-
lish, upon a sound and permanent
basis, this new kind of training.

Those in charge of higher education,
however, were, naturally, not so con-
scious of this economic need as were
the "practical" men ; and, by reason
of their training, were far less ready
to perceive much relation between ap-
plied science and a college course.
To grasp the significance of this new
demand required a peculiar combina-
tion of intellectual qualities, supple-
mented by special experience. For-
tunately these were found in the
distinguished "Brothers Rogers," the
four sons of Dr. Patrick Kerr Rogers,
an Irishman by birth, a physician by

131

Mercantile Library Building, Summer Street

profession, an intense lover of inves-
tigation, and, in his later life, while
his sons were being educated, pro-
fessor of physics and chemistry at the
University of William and Mary, in
Virginia.

All four of these sons (born between
1802 and 1 81 3) devoted themselves to
science and made for themselves
names honored in this country and
abroad. And with them — especially
with the second son, William Barton,
and the third son, Henry — originated,
in 1846, an organic plan for a poly-
technic institution for America, which,
twenty years later, was to take shape
in the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.

William Barton Rogers was born

December 7, 1804, at Philadelphia.

Twenty-four years later his father

died and he succeeded to the professor-

132

ship of physics and chemistry, at
William and Mary College, leaving
it only to accept the chair of natural
philosophy and geology at the Univer-
sity of Virginia. To the duties of
this distinguished position were im-
mediately added those of State Geolo-
gist, to which office he was appointed
by the Legislature of Virginia. The
immense labor of making the survey
of his adopted state, extending over
seven years (1835-1842), in no degree
abated his enthusiasm in his professor-
ship. Fervent in imagination, though
never unfaithful to the absolute truth
of nature, gifted with eloquence ex-
traordinary in itself, and doubly so
in a student of the exact sciences, he
could hold the most indifferent audi-
ence spellbound with the magic of his
exposition. His students at the Uni-
versity of Virginia or wherever else he

William B. Rogers

taught gave no perfunctory attention.
He not only forced them, by his mar-
vellously clear and virile presentation
of scientific facts and theories, to give
strictest heed to him, but he aroused
for the study itself an enthusiasm
which did not die with the sound of
his voice. This power to hold atten-
tion and to arouse enthusiasm was
of immense value to the Institute of
Technology when, later, it fell to him
to plead its cause.

In 1849, Professor Rogers married

Miss Emma Savage, daughter of Dr.
James Savage, the eminent genealo-
gist. Largely because of this union,
he resigned, four years later, his pro-
fessorship at the University of Vir-
ginia, and took up his residence in
Boston, the city for which, in the
thirty years of his life there, he was
to do so much.

In view of the general unrest already
referred to, it would be an exaggera-
tion to say that the idea of the Institute
of Technology originated with Wil-

133

134

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

liam Barton Rogers and his distin-
guished brothers; but the following
extracts from their correspondence
make it clear that to them is due the
credit of formulating what was but
a vague desire into a definite and
feasible scheme. On March 8,
1846, Henry Rogers writes from
Boston to William Rogers, then pro-
fessor at the University of Virginia :

' . . . I have to speak of another
interesting matter. Mr. Lowell,* with
whom I have been talking, after mention-
ing the feature in the Lowell will which
enjoins the creation of classes in the Insti-
tute to receive' exact instruction in useful
knowledge, requested me to give him, in
writing, the views I had just been unfold-
ing of the value' of a School of Arts as a
branch of the Lowell Institute. . . . His
plan would be to teach the operative
classes of society, — builders, engineers,
practical chemists, manufacturers, etc.;
to admit in the first year only in limited
numbers, and to teach them regularly; to
have, perhaps, two permanent and salaried
professors at the head of it, and to make
up the rest of the instruction by assistants
and by teachers who would give courses
of instruction occasionally on special
branches. How much I want you near
me at this time to aid me in digesting and
submitting my views on this important
scheme to Mr. Lowell! If you and myself
could be at the head of this Polytechnic
School of the Useful Arts, it would be
pleasanter for us than any college profes-
sorship, for there would be less discipline,
indeed, no more than with medical stu-
dents. At no distant day, if not indeed
soon, Mr. Lowell will, I hope, organize
such a branch in his Institute; and if he
does not, you and I can surely get one
founded here by going about it in the
right way. Let us give' this matter our
earnest and sober thoughts. . . . Take
Robert into counsel, and draw up a
scheme of study: enumerate the things to

*Mr. John Amory Lowell, then Trustee of that Lowell
Fund which has been such a beneficent factor in the educa-
tional progress of Boston and Massachusetts.

be taught, the nature' of the apparatus for
instruction aiming at economy, and show
me your ideas of the value of science in
this great modern application to the
practical arts of life, to human comfort
and health, and to social wealth and
power. ..."

William Rogers replies to this:

"... Ever since I have known something
of the' knowledge-seeking spirit, and the
intellectual capabilities of the community
in and around Boston, I have felt per-
suaded that of all places in the world it
was the one most certain to derive the
highest benefits from a Polytechnic
Institution. The occupations and inter-
ests of the great mass of the people are
immediately connected with the applica-
tions of physical science, and their quick
intelligence has already impressed them
with just ideas of the value' of scientific
teaching in their daily pursuits. . . ."

and he proceeds to draw up a plan
for a Polytechnic School in Boston
(this, be it remembered, was in 1846)
from which, a few extracts, quoted,
as were those above, from the "Life
and Letters" edited by his wife follow :

"A school of practical science com-
pletely organized should, I conceive,
embrace full courses of instruction in all
the principles of physical truth having
direct relation to the art of constructing
machinery, the application of motive
power, manufacturing, mechanical and
chemical, the art of engraving with elec-
trotype and photography, mineral explo-
ration and mining, chemical analysis,
engineering, locomotion and agriculture.
It would require two departments.

"First, one in which, by courses of lec-
tures, amply illustrated, a broad and solid
foundation should be' laid in general
physics, including especially the mechanics
of solids, liquids and airs, and the laws of
heat, electricity, magnetism and light, and
in the chemistry of the more important
inorganic and organic principles. . . .

"The other, and entirely practical de-
partment, would embrace instruction in

Rogers Building

chemical manipulation and the analysis of
chemical products, ores, metals and
other materials used in the arts, as well
as of soils and manures. Second, a
course of practical, elementary mathemat-
ics, and Third, full instruction in draw-
ing and modelling. This branch should
also include special courses in teaching in
architecture, engineering and the' various
branches of the arts not treated of in the
first department. ... A scheme of this
kind begun with two professors in the'
scientific department and two subordinate
instructors in the other, under the direc-
tion of the former, would, I am certain,
prove so signally successful as ultimately
to require its expansion into a polytechnic
college on the most ample scale in which,
along with all the subjects above referred
to, would be embraced full courses in

elementary mathematics and instruction,
perhaps, in the French and German lan-
guages. In a word, I doubt not that such
a nucleus-school would, with the growth
of this active and knowledge-seeking
community, finally expand into a great
institution comprehending the whole field
of physical science and the arts with the
auxiliary branches of the mathematics and
modern languages, and would soon over-
top the universities of the' land in the
accuracy and the extent of its teachings
in all branches of positive knowledge. . . .
"The true and only practicable object of
a polytechnic school is, as I conceive, the
teaching, not of the minute details and
manipulations of the arts, which can be
done only in the workshops, but the incul-
cation of those scientific principles which
form the basis and explanation of them,

135

136

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Seal of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology

and along with this a full and methodical
review of all their leading processes and
operations in connection with physical
laws. . . ."

"To close this long, but still incom-
plete catalogue of illustrations, we may
safely affirm that there is no branch of
practical industry, whether in the arts of
construction, manufactures or agriculture,
which is not capable of being better
practised, and even of being improved
in its processes, through the knowledge of
its connections with physical truths and
laws. . . .

''A polytechnic school, therefore, fully
organized, has in view an object of the ut-
most practical value, and one which in
such a community as that of Boston
could not fail of being realized in the
amplest degree."

The Lowell Fund being so far re-
stricted as to make it unavailable for
the purposes suggested by the Pro-
fessors Rogers, and no other resource
seeming at command, the opportunity
for establishing the first school of
applied science in New England — the
Rensselaer Polytechnic, a school for
civil engineers, having been founded
at Troy, N. Y., in 1824 — was lo»t

to Boston. Subsequent gifts, stimu-
lated no doubt by the suggestions of
the brothers Rogers, were made to
establish the Lawrence Scientific
School, at Harvard, in 1847, and the
Sheffield Scientific School, at Yale,
about ten years later.

Perhaps because of their close affil-
iation to older colleges still strictly
classical in their atmosphere, these
two scientific schools seem hardly to
have met the demand of the times
in the education which they gave ; and
they certainly could not in point of
numbers graduated. Therefore the
agitation continued among an ever
wider circle for an institution, the
plan of which was still quite vague,
but which should in the fullest way
stimulate research and provide, for all
classes of society, ordered instruction
in the "natural," the pure, and the
applied sciences. This ferment at last
took definite shape in a meeting called
at the rooms of the Boston Society
of Natural History, then located on
Mason Street, February 18, 1859.
The meeting was attended by about
forty gentlemen with Mr. Marshall P.
Wilder as chairman, and Dr. Samuel
Kneeland, Jr., as secretary. Profes-
sor Agassiz, Hon. Alex. H. Rice, Mr.
John D. Philbrick and others spoke.
While one of the gentlemen advocated
the reservation of an open space of
Back Bay land for the reason, chiefly,
that the residents of Beacon Hill,
heretofore cooled in summer by the
breezes from that Back Bay, might
not suffer by its filling in, and al-
though another of the speakers had
so mean an idea of the enterprise as
to urge the purchase of the Hancock
estate, then on sale, the majority of
those present were more serious in

Portion of Machine-Tool Laboratory

purpose and more generous in plan
than these, and heartily indorsed the
proposal for the reservation of a large
tract of the still unfilled Back Bay.
A committee of seven was appointed,
with power to memorialize the Legis-
lature for authority to establish a
"Conservatory of Art, Science, and
Historical Relics."

The committee thus commissioned
lost no time in presenting their peti-
tion. Premising that four squares of
the proposed Back Bay lands be re-
served for this "Massachusetts Con-
servatory," the petitioners suggest
that: "Section No. I might be
devoted to collections of implements,
models, and other objects pertaining
to Agriculture, Horticulture and
Pomology.

"Section No. II, to Natural History,
Practical Geology and Chemistry,
with ample room for museums of
specimens.

"Section No. Ill, to those institu-

tions devoted to the development of
Mechanics, Manufactures and Com-
merce.

"Section No. IV, to Fine Arts,
History and Ethnology. •

"It is not proposed," the memorial
states, "to merge the different in-
stitutions in one, — the perfect indi-
viduality of each being retained in
every respect, having nothing neces-
sarily in common but the general fos-
tering care of the state."

This first exposition of the plans of
its promoters shows their scheme to
have been essentially a popular one.
They hoped to provide higher educa-
tion for the people, to train artisans
and mechanics in such wise that the
relations between them and the men
of science might be close and cordial,
and that the theories of the latter
might be verified and checked by the
work of the former, who, in their turn,
would derive incalculable benefit from
the experiments and researches of the

137

138

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

scientists. Popular lectures, skil-
fully arranged museums, published
reports, were to be the means of educa-
tion, and examinations and other tests
leading to diplomas were to form the
immediate aim and measure of the
work. This popular aspect of the
plan was emphasized by the Conser-
vatory Journal, a short-lived news-
paper issued during April, May and
June of the year 1859, the publication
of which led to a sharp controversy
and eventually, probably, to a more
ready acceptance of the maturer and
wiser plans of Professor Rogers.

This first petition, because of the
late date at which it reached the
Legislature, failed of consideration.
Early in the following session, how-
ever, was presented a second "memo-
rial" substantially upon the lines of
that of 1859.

Petitions in aid of the second
memorial for a "Conservatory of Arts
and Sciences" were presented by
the Boston Society of Natural
History, the Boston Board of Trade,
the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences, the Massachusetts
Charitable Mechanic Association
and the New England Society; the
endorsement of each of these dis-
tinguished bodies, representing such
diverse interests, being most cordial
and hearty. A favorable bill was
presented, and passed the House, but,
late in the session, was rejected in the
Senate.

Four months later, the sub-com-
mittee, through its chairman, Professor
Rogers, issued a call for a public
meeting to be held at the rooms of
the Board of Trade, on October 5,
i860; and at this meeting was adopted
the report of the committee, outlining

the plan of the Institute of Tech-
nology. The Conservatory of Arts
and Sciences, with its huge collections,
supplemented by instruction, is found
to have given place to a school, in
which the instruction is to be first,
and the collections merely subsidiary
to the theoretical and practical teach-
ing. After reciting the benefits to be
derived from institutions of the nature
contemplated, especially in a com-
munity like Massachusetts, largely
devoted as it is to manufactures, the
report says :

"With the view of securing the great
industrial and educational benefits above'
alluded to, it is proposed to establish, on
a comprehensive plan, an institution de-
voted to the practical arts and sciences,
to be called the' Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, having the triple organiza-
tion of a Society of Arts, a Museum or
Conservatory of Arts, and a School ot
Industrial Science and Art."

A pamphlet outlining the "Objects
and Plan" of this proposed Institute
of Technology, written by Professor
Rogers, was distributed widely
throughout the state of Massachusetts.
Two months later followed a circular
letter announcing a meeting to be held
in Mercantile Hall, 16 Summer Street,
on the evening of January 11, 1861,

"for the purpose of adopting measures
preliminary to the organization of the
Institute, and in furtherance of a petition
to the Legislature for a charter, and a
portion of the Back Bay lands."

The third memorial was, in January,
1 86 1, properly presented to the General
Court, and by them referred to a Joint
Standing Committee of the Legisla-
ture. This committee made, on
March 19, 1861, a report entirely
favorable to the grant. Their report
was accepted by both branches of the

... ... _

Hydraulic Field Work

Legislature and, on April 10, 1861,
more than two years after the subject
was first publicly agitated, two years
of almost constant effort in the face
of opposition and discouragement, at
an hour when the thoughts of the
people were turned more toward im-
pending war than in the direction of
measures presupposing peace and
well-being, the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology was legally established,
by the approving signature of John
A. Andrew, Governor of the Common-
wealth.

This Act of Incorporation, how-
ever, contained a very important
provision that

"within one year after the passage of the
Act" (the incorporators) "furnish satis-
factory evidence to the Governor and
Council that the Institute has funds sub-
scribed, or otherwise guaranteed, for the
prosecution of its objects, to an amount
of at least one hundred thousand dollars."

Owing to the distractions and ex-
citement of the Civil War, the friends
of the Institute had little to show at
the expiration of that year, beyond
some small subscriptions and .1
cordial letter from Mr. Ralph Hunt-
ington, stating that the Institute would
receive $50,000 from him by will.
These the state authorities refused
to regard as a compliance with the
terms of the Act, and it was necessary,
therefore, for the projectors to peti-
tion for a supplementary Act, which
was passed, extending until April 10,
1863, the time during which the finan-
cial guarantee might be secured.

Notwithstanding the efforts of those
deeply interested in the project, the
unsettled condition of the business
world, the many demands upon its
leaders for money to prosecute the
war, and the temporary diversion of in-
terest and financial aid toward the

139

140

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Dr. William J. .Walker

Boston Society of Natural History,
which had actually begun to erect its
handsome building, conspired against
them ; and the spring of 1863 found
the Institute with little more to offer
to the Governor and Council as an
earnest of its good faith than it had
been able to present the year before.
Therefore, on March 7, 1863, the
Finance Committee, consisting of
Messrs. M. D. Ross, J. M. Beebe, E.
S. Tobey, and N. H. Eldredge, to
whom great honor is due for their
exertions at this critical time, issued
an earnest appeal for contributions.
At the end of the month, however,
less than $40,000 had been pledged,
and it seemed that the weary work
of persuading the General Court
further to extend the time must be
undertaken, and that, with so little to
indicate popular interest in the plan,
the many forces working against an
Institute of Applied Science might
this time compass its defeat. With
this discouraging outlook, and upon

the very last day of the year of grace,
Dr. Rogers, who, in 1862 had been
elected President of the Institute, re-
ceived a letter announcing that

"... by an instrument bearing date New-
port, second of April, 1863, a gift of prop-
erty has been made to the 'Massachusetts
Institute of Technology,' by Dr. William
J. Walker, at present a resident in
Newport, R. I., but formerly a citizen of
Boston, which is worth not less than sixty
thousand dollars, and probably from ten
to twelve thousand dollars more. . . ."

In this almost dramatic way the
expiring charter was saved.

Dr. William Johnson Walker, this
earliest large benefactor of the Insti-
tute of Technology, was born in
Charlestown in 1789, and was gradu-
ated at Harvard in 18 10. After prac-
tising the profession of medicine for
thirty years with signal success, Dr.
Walker retired in 1845, removed to
Boston, and interested himself in
manufactures and railroads, then
entering upon a period of wonderful
development. He thereby amassed a
fortune, large for the time, the greater
part of which went to the furthering
of education and other good works.

This almost providential gift of
Dr. Walker's-, and a subsequent
equally welcome bequest from him of
over two hundred thousand dollars,
greatly stimulated the work and en-
larged the aims of the nascent Insti-
tute, exerting no small influence upon
its entire subsequent career. The
gift, President Rogers declared at a
meeting of the Government called to
accept it, opened a "glorious prospect"
to the Institution, but it also laid upon
it "heavier responsibilities," so that
"it had become still more incumbent
upon both the officers and members
of the Institute to strive to the utmost

A Corner of the General Library

to form and sustain for it a character
which should place it in the front rank
of learned associations of a similar
kind." And again, writing to his
brother Henry, in 1865, President
Rogers refers to the lately announced
bequest of Dr. Walker as a reason for
projecting the work of the school upon
a much larger plan than had seemed
before possible.

Public work really began with a
series of lectures delivered before the
Society of Arts in April, 1862. These
lectures have been continued during
every winter since that time, and have
been the means of bringing many valu-

able inventions, processes and hy-
potheses before the public. Scarcely
an important forward step in science
has been made in the last forty years
without being explained before the
Society of Arts ; and to-day because of
the activity of the successive secreta-
ries, and despite the multiplication of
learned associations, its sessions are
more largely attended than ever be-
fore, and its published papers more
widely read. When, however, the Mas-
sachusetts Institute of Technology is
spoken of, reference is had, as a rule,
solely to the School of Industrial
Science. This division of the original

141

142

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

threefold plan of Dr. Rogers has
grown so fast and to such proportions
as to place the Society of Arts in the
position of an adjunct to its work and
to eclipse altogether the Museum of
Arts, to which, in the original scheme,
the school was to have been auxiliary.
Conditions of education have so
changed in the past forty years that
it now seems doubtful if the Museum
will ever be developed beyond its pres-
ent useful point of providing typical
small collections for the use of students
in the several professional depart-
ments.

This School of Industrial Science —
or as it will be called throughout the
remainder of this article, the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology — was
opened in February, 1865, in leased
rooms in the building of the Mer-
cantile Library Association on Summer
Street and in the dwelling of Judge
Jackson, on Rowe Place, — both
edifices being afterwards destroyed
in the great fire of 1872. The objects
of the school and the courses that it
offered were, to quote from the First
Annual Catalogue,

"First, To provide a full course of
scientific studies and practical exercises
for students seeking to qualify themselves
for the professions of the Mechanical En-
gineer, Civil Engineer, Practical Chemist,
Engineer of Mines, and Builder and
Architect.

"Second, To furnish such a general edu-
cation, founded upon the Mathematical,
Physical and Natural Sciences, English
and other Modern Languages, and Mental
and Political Science, as shall form a fit-
ting preparation for any of the depart-
ments of active life; and

"Third, To provide courses of Evening
Instruction in the main branches of
knowledge' above referred to, for persons
of either sex who are prevented, by occu-
pation or other causes, from devoting

themselves to scientific study during the
day, but who desire to avail themselves of
systematic evening lessons or lectures."

The numbers in attendance in Octo-
ber, 1865, according to the same
authority, were : Regular students, 2nd
year, 30; 1st year, 32; special stu-
dents, 7. The total number of the in-
structing staff was ten, and included,
besides President Rogers, Professors
J. D. Runkle, F. H. Storer, Charles
W. Eliot, W. P. Atkinson, F. Bocher,
J. B. Henck, W. Watson, W. R. Ware
and J. D. Hague.

In the fall of 1866 the Institute
was removed from Summer Street to
its first building, — named in 1882 the
Rogers Building. This had been
erected, at unexpectedly great cost,
on the property, then on the extreme
edge of the "made land" of the Back
Bay, given to the Institute and the
Boston Society of Natural History,
in reversion, by the Commonwealth.
There, in 1868, was graduated the
first class of fourteen young men.

During the three years of struggle
preliminary to organization, and from
his election to the presidency in 1862,
until 1868, when his health gave way,
Professor Rogers was ceaselessly
occupied in the enormous labor of or-
ganizing what was really a new ven-
ture in education, in planning and
supervising the erection of the college
building, and, hardest of all, in over-
coming old prejudices against this new
species of training for young men.
He had the support, it is true, of a
corporation, or board of trustees, made
up of men of the highest enthusiasm
and acumen; he had the advantage
of a wisely selected faculty who gave
themselves with extraordinary zeal to
the solution of the many problems of

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

143

the new work; but the atmosphere oi
Boston, always cool to the experi-
mental, was thoroughly imbued with
the conservative traditions of the oldest
college in New England, and, for
many years, was a difficult medium
through which to perceive the merits
of this youngest college, with its ag-
gressive disturbance of teaching
methods. For, quite aside from the
specific work of training engineers,
chemists and architects which the In-
stitute was doing, it was also making
necessary the virtual reorganization
of all higher education by proving
the vast superiority, in many direc-
tions, of the laboratory method in giv-
ing instruction to young men. This
way of teaching is to-day so much
a matter of course, that it is difficult
to realize how truly President Rogers
and his colleagues were pioneers in
one of the greatest advances in higher
education. In his now classic state-
ment, the "Objects and Plan of an
Institute of Technology," in which, in
1861, the general features and aims of
the great college of 1902 were so
clearly foredrawn, Professor Rogers
strongly advocated laboratory teach-
ing; and the chemical laboratories
were the department first to be pro-
vided for in the original building.
Moreover in the first annual catalogue
it is stated that "The Laboratory ar-
rangements of the School are designed,
when complete, to embrace the fol-
lowing departments : ( 1 ) Laboratory
of Physics and Mechanics ; (2) Labor-
atories for Chemical Analysis; (3)
Laboratory for Metallurgy; and (4)
Laboratory for Industrial Chemistry.''
And in this catalogue it is declared
that "A high value is set upon the
educational effect of laboratory prac-

Masonry Arch Testing Machine

tice, in the belief that such practice
trains the senses to observe with ac-
curacy and the judgment to rely with
confidence on the proof of actual
experiment."

From this early day, and by means
of ever developing and enlarging
laboratories, the Institute has main-
tained the principle that a student shall
not take on the word of his teacher
what it is reasonably possible for him
to prove himself. This simple, but
far-reaching, principle has acted as
an extraordinary leaven upon educa-
tion, modifying the entire system. For
by bringing professor and student
close together over the laboratory
table or machine, it has abolished
the formal aloofness of earlier days
and has established human relations
between the teacher and the taught.
Furthermore, laboratory methods have
made "wholesale" teaching an impos-
sibility ; instruction to-day, to be good,

144

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

John D. Runkle
must have regard to the individual
student, not to great unknown bodies
of young men. In the Institute of
Technology, for example, the propor-
tion of teachers to students is, omit-
ting occasional lecturers, not less than
one to nine. Finally, the principle
of "learning by doing" has readjusted
educational values, relegating some
time-honored subjects to the educa-
tional rubbish-heap and raising other
topics, formerly despised, to high and
honorable place. So fully, indeed, has
the laboratory method commended it-
self at the Institute that its very
library is used as a laboratory. To
that end, it is divided into departmental
libraries scattered throughout the
buildings, and each in close proximity
to its appropriate laboratory. These
divided libraries, containing a total
of 60,000 volumes and 16,000 pamph-
lets, are made available by a skilfully
arranged card catalogue placed in the
general library, and duplicated, so
far as may be necessary, in each
department.

President Rogers's health failing
under the stress of his great labors
and not being restored by complete
rest and absence from Boston, he felt
obliged, in 1870, to resign. His suc-
cessor in office was Professor Runkle,
then, and from his resignation from
the presidency until his death, July 8,
1902, senior professor of mathematics
in the Institute.

John Daniel Runkle was born in
Root, N.Y., in 1822 and was graduated
from the Lawrence Scientific School
in 185 1, receiving the degrees of
Bachelor of Science and of Master of
Arts from Harvard University. Be-
fore entering college he had taught
for several years, and after gradua-
tion was a member of the staff of the
"Nautical Almanac" and founder
of the Mathematical Monthly. In
1865, Mr. Runkle was elected to the
first Faculty of the Institute, and at
his death was the sole member of that
original body still connected with the
college. Upon the breaking down of
Dr. Rogers's health in 1868, Professor
Runkle was appointed acting Presi-
dent, and upon the former's resigna-
tion in 1870 was, as already stated,
elected to the presidency, having
been recommended thereto by his
predecessor.

During Professor Runkle's presi-
dency were established three of the
leading laboratories of the Institute:
that in Mining. Engineering and Met-
allurgy, in 1872; that in Mechanical
Engineering, in 1874; and the Shops,
or mechanical laboratories, in 1876.
The effectiveness of the mechanical
engineering laboratories dates from
a later time than President Runkle's
administration; but the establishing
of the laboratories of mining and

Portion of Engineering Laboratory

metallurgy and the planning of the
shops along present lines were directly
due to him. The former were initi-
ated by a Summer School of Min-
ing— the first summer session in the
Institute's history — President Runkle,.
with five professors and seventeen
students, making an extended tour
through the mining regions of Mis-
souri, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and
California. Returning from this jour-
ney well equipped with ideas and with
promises of practical assistance, the
President, together with Professors
Ordway and Richards, planned the
laboratories which, under the uninter-
rupted care of Professor Richards,
have been brought to such a high de-
gree of perfection as to be models for
other institutions.

The shops, or mechanical labora-

tories, were the outgrowth of a study
by President Runkle of the Russian
exhibit at the Centennial Exposition
in Philadelphia. Shop-work instruc-
tion theretofore had had in sole view
the manufacturing aim, the purpose
being to perfect the student in the
making of some one machine. The
Russian system, however, kept before
it the pupil rather than the machine,
planning its exercises upon educa-
tional rather than upon utilitarian
lines. President Runkle was quick to
see the significance of this change of
attitude and, immediately upon his
return, began, with great enthusiasm,
to lay out a course of manual teach-
ing and' to build shops which have
been the standard for the best sub-
sequent work of this character in
America. In order that the benefits

145

146

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

of this training might be publicly mani-
fest, a subsidiary school, called the
School of Mechanic Arts, was main-
tained by the Institute for a number
of years until by the widespread adop-
tion of the idea and by the establishing,
under the auspices of the City of
Boston, of a Mechanic Arts High
School, this model secondary school
became no longer necessary. Since
then the shops have served solely their
proper function, that of mechanical
laboratories for the students in en-
gineering.

Other important events of President
Runkle's term of office were the found-
ing of three new courses : those in
Mining and Metallurgy, in Physics,
and in Biology ; the starting, on a
small scale, of laboratories in micro-
scopic analysis and industrial chemis-
try, both of which were subsequently
to be so greatly extended; the build-
ing of a gymnasium and the establish-
ing of a lunch room for the students ;
and the admission of women to the
courses of the college. Moreover very
early in his presidency he preserved
the autonomy of the Institute by suc-
cessfully opposing a plan for the ab-
sorption of this newest Massachusetts
college by the oldest college of the
Commonwealth.

The serious financial panic of 1873,
however, began as early as 1875
gravely to affect the numbers of
students and to dry up that main
source of the Institute's revenue, the
annual contributions of generous
merchants and manufacturers. By
1878 the numbers and income had so
far diminished that this year saw the
most serious crisis in the history of the
institution. For many months its
existence hung in the balance; and

only through the self-sacrifice of the
Faculty in submitting to a marked re-
duction of their already meagre
salaries, through the heroism of Pro-
fessor Rogers in resuming the presi-
dency,— the long continued strain of
which had proved too much for Dr.
Runkle, making it necessary for him
to seek rest abroad, — and through
the generosity of the Institute's
treasurer, John Cummings, in pledg-
ing his personal credit for large sums,
was the life of the college saved.

Although in precarious health, Dr.
Rogers held the office of President
until the appointment of his successor
in 1 88 1 and, with tragic fitness, died,
literally in harness, when formally in-
troducing that successor to the public
at the annual graduation exercises, on
the thirtieth of May, 1882. From
1846, when he drew up that first plan
of it, until this last earthly day, when
he saw his vision realized and the In-
stitute rapidly growing strong and
already world-famous, the "Polytech-
nic School in Boston" had completely
absorbed his thoughts, his strength
and his ambition.

As Professor Rogers was pre-
eminently the man for the building of
such an institution, so Gen. Walker,
who succeeded him, was superlatively
the man needed at that time.

Francis Amasa Walker, born in
Brookfield, Mass., in 1840 and gradu-
ated from Amherst — where his distin-
guished father, Amasa Walker, was
professor of political economy — in
i860, had lived a singularly broaden-
ing and deepening life. Enlisting as
a private at the age of twenty-one, and
rapidly promoted, he served through-
out the Civil War. He was upon
Couch's staff, and Warren's; and was

NSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

147

chief of staff under General Hancock ;
was for six weeks in Libby Prison;
and was made brigadier general for
gallantry at Chancellorsville. In every
capacity he won distinction for
bravery, clear-headedness and matu-
rity of judgment. The war ended, and
bearing honorable wounds, young
Walker taught Latin and Greek for
several years at Williston Seminary
and served as assistant editor upon
the Springfield Republican. Called
thence to Washington, he was succes-
sively Chief of the Bureau of Statis-
tics, Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
and Superintendent of the Ninth and
Tenth Censuses, all of which posi-
tions he filled admirably. Meanwhile
he had been made professor of politi-
cal economy in the Sheffield Scientific
School, where he taught, to the delight
and edification of hundreds of students,
for nine years. During this time he
published a number of volumes on
political economy, including a text-

French's Bust of Gen. Walker

Gen. Francis A. Walker

book which is still standard here and
in Great Britain.

This man, ripe in such an extraor-
dinary range of knowledge and experi-
ence, the Corporation of the Institute
wisely chose for their President in
1 88 1. With his coming and with the
restored financial stability of the times,
the work of earlier days began to bear
fruit and the Institute grew by leaps
and bounds. During the fifteen years
of his presidency the number of
students increased from 300 to 1200,
and the number of professors and in-
structors from 39 to 153. To meet
this tremendous development and to
fulfill the rapidly growing demands of
industrial and educational life, the In-
stitute during his presidency erected
three large new buildings, and estab-
lished four new courses, those in Elec-

148

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

trical Engineering, Chemical En-
gineering, Sanitary Engineering and
Naval Architecture. In addition to
his enormous and unremitting labors
as President of the Institute, General
Walker was extraordinarily zealous
in the performance of his duties as a
citizen of Boston and of Massachu-
setts. A member of the State Board
of Education, of the Boston School
Committee, of the Trustees of the
Boston Public Library, of the Park
Commission, of the Art Commission,
and of other similar bodies, he contrib-
uted notably and for all time to the
upbuilding of the community; while
as President of the St. Botolph Club
and as a member of many kindred or-
ganizations, he did much for the social
life of the city. During these fifteen
years, moreover, he published several
books and a great number of articles
in periodicals, and delivered number-
less public lectures and addresses.
Splendid as this was, it was literally
a giving of himself; so that, on the
5th of January, 1897, in the full vigor
of his intellect, and when he seemed
about to reap some measure of well-

earned leisure, President Walker
suddenly died, worn out by nearly forty
years of service to his country and
his state. His funeral at Trinity
Church and the Memorial Service held
at the Music Hall in the following
October brought together such bodies
of representative men from all parts
of the United States as clearly de-
monstrated that in losing him the In-
stitute of Technology lost one of the
great men of this generation.

After a short interregnum in which
he served as chairman of the Faculty,
James Mason Crafts, head of the depart-
ment of Chemistry, was chosen suc-
cessor to General Walker. Professor
Crafts, born in Boston in 1839 and
educated at the Lawrence Scientific
School, has spent much of his life
abroad in the laboratories of such men
as Bunsen and Wurtz, and was for
several years Dean of the Chemistry
Faculty of Cornell University. From
1870 to 1880 and again from 1891
until his election to the presidency he
was a member of the Faculty and, for
the latter period, a member also of
the Corporation of the Institute. The

Drawing Room of the Naval-Architecture Department

Laboratory of Electrical, Measurements

two years of Dr. Crafts's presidency
were eventful, and he was active in
carrying forward the policy of his
predecessors. Large receipts from the
bequest of Mr. Henry L. Pierce made
it possible to erect a much needed
building and to carry out important
improvements in all the other build-
ings. Besides this Pierce bequest, the
Institute received, during this adminis-
tration, an unusual number of gifts
and bequests, — among others, from,
the Randall Estate, from Mr. Edward
Austin, Mrs. Julia B. H. James, Mr.
George A. Gardner, and Mr. Augus-
tus Lowell, the last gift of $50,000,
subsequently increased to $100,000,
creating a fund for the benefit of the
teaching staff. These large acces-
sions, together with the generous aid
of the state, placed the Institute on
a far sounder financial footing than
it had ever before stood.

Finding, however, the work of
chemical research more attractive to
him than that of administration, Dr.
Crafts resigned the presidency early

in 1900 and was succeeded by Dr.
Henry Smith Pritchett, who was in-
augurated in October, 1900. A Mis-
sourian by birth, son of Professor C.
W. Pritchett, Director of the Morri-
son Astronomical Observatory at Glas-
gow, Dr. Pritchett was trained an
astronomer under Professor Asaph
Hall at the Naval Observatory at
Washington and by study at the Uni-
versity of Munich, where he obtained
his doctor's degree. Appointed as-
sistant professor of mathematics and

James Mason Crafts

149

150

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

astronomy in the Washington Univer-
sity of St. Louis in 1881, he remained
on the Faculty of that institution for
sixteen years, leading, meanwhile, the
Transit of Venus Expedition in 1882
to New Zealand, presiding over the
St. Louis Academy of Sciences, and
publishing many papers on astronom-
ical and geodetic topics.

Called in 1897 to be the head of
the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey,
Dr. Pritchett made so admirable a
record in that important administra-
tive position that the Corporation had
no hesitation in choosing him for the
piesidency left vacant by the resigna-
tion of Dr. Crafts. That this choice
was a most wise and fortunate one
no one who has been in relation with
President Pritchett can for a moment
question. A man "of delightful per-
sonality, of enthusiasm, of good judg-
ment, of tact, of courage, his varied
training has peculiarly fitted him
for the position which he so admi-
rably fills. Moreover, following the
example set by President Walker, Dr.
Pritchett has identified himself widely
with public interests, and is an in-
cumbent of many positions of public
trust and usefulness.

These presidents, well fitted for the
executive work to which they were
successively called, have been, from the
beginning, supported and seconded by
a devoted body of men upon the Cor-
poration and upon the teaching staff.
Among the trustees of the earlier days
— to mention but a few — were such
men as Jacob Bigelow, John M.
Forbes, James B. Francis, Henry B.
Rogers, John Cummings and Augus-
tus Lowell, and the present Corpora-
tion is representative of the best in
Boston and in Massachusetts. Never

content simply to lend their names,
these successive fifty trustees have
given largely of their time and of their
means to the upbuilding of the Insti-
tute, r^l

As to the members of the Faculty,
their unswerving loyalty, their courage
and zeal in attacking the many new
and perplexing problems arising in
an institution where so large a part
of the work is of the nature of
pioneering, their mutual support and
tolerance, their patience and enthusi-
asm with their students have been
undoubtedly the largest factor in plac-
ing the Institute of Technology in the
high position that it holds to-day.

The thirteen undergraduate courses
now offered at the Institute are as
follows : Civil and Topographical En-
gineering, Mechanical Engineering,
Mining Engineering and Metallurgy,
Architecture, Chemistry, Electrical
Engineering, Biology, Physics, Gen-
eral Studies, Chemical Engineering,
Sanitary Engineering, Geology, Naval
Architecture. These courses lead to
the degree of Bachelor of Science, and
in addition there are offered graduate
courses leading to that of Master of
Science. The continuance of special
research work for at least one year
after receiving the Master's degree
may add that of Doctor of Philosophy.
Without entering upon a detailed ac-
count of the courses and methods at
the Institute of Technology, it may
be stated, in general, that the funda-
mental principle underlying them all
is that the student shall have, in his
studies, a considerable and a progres-
sively expanding, but always a care-
fully directed, choice. For the first
half of the freshman year all students
follow a common course designed to

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

151

advance them from the supervised
study of the preparatory schools to
the more independent work of the
college. At the middle of this fresh-
man year the young man, after oppor-
tunity for consultation with his
advisers and with the heads of depart-
ments, makes choice of his profes-
sional course. Thereafter there may
be further differentiation until, in the
second term of the senior year, in the
preparation of his thesis, the young
man is thrown in the largest possible
measure upon his own resources and
initiative.

In the course in Civil Engineering,
for example, the student may follow
one of three different lines of study :
the first giving him a training in
general civil engineering, the second
permitting him to devote himself more
closely to railroads and highways, and
the third directing his attention par-
ticularly to geodesy and topography.
The student who takes Mechanical
Engineering may, in his higher years,
follow the line of marine, of locomo-
tive or of mill engineering, or may
make a specialty of heating and venti-
lation. The Architects, again, may
differentiate among a general course
in architecture, one in architectural en-
gineering and one in landscape archi-
tecture. And the students in most of
the other courses are permitted to
choose some specialty of their several
professions. Moreover, within each of
these so-called "options" there is again
latitude of choice ; while for his gradu-
ation thesis the candidate often does
independent research and experimenta-
tion of real scientific value.

But while the student has an in-
creasing range of choice as he pro-
gresses, it is always within education-

From photograph by Notman Photo. Co.

Dr. H. S. Pritchett

ally and professionally rational lines,
laid out for him by the Faculty of the
college; for it is the belief of those
governing the Institute that a body of
trained teachers, with long profes-
sional experience, is more competent
to direct the sequence and range of
his study towards a definite end than
is the undergraduate himself. After
nearly forty years of experience, it
seems clearly demonstrated that in this
-method of directed choice lies the wise
medium between a single, rigid college
course and a free, and therefore more
or less chaotic, elective system.

The buildings now occupied by the
Institute are seven in number: the
Rogers Building, on Boylston Street,
devoted mainly to instruction in mathe-
matics, literature, history, and political
science, and containing the adminis-

15:

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

trative offices and the general library;
the Walker Building, on Boylston and
Clarendon Streets, for the departments
of Chemistry, Physics, and Electrical
Engineering, and Modern Languages ;
the two Engineering Buildings, on
Trinity Place, given up to the engineer-
ing laboratories, to instruction in
applied mechanics and hydraulics, and
to the departments of civil and me-
chanical Engineering and Naval Archi-
tecture ; the Henry L. Pierce Build-
ing, also on Trinity Place, occupied
by the departments of Architecture,
Biology, Geology, and by the labora-
tories of industrial chemistry and
textile coloring ; a series of mechanical
laboratories on Garrison Street; and
a Gymnasium on Exeter Street. Im-
mediately to be erected is a new tem-
porary building for electrical en-
gineering and for recitation rooms
which will leave the Walker Building
free for physics and chemistry. A
permanent building to provide for the
departments of Physics and of Elec-
trical Engineering had been planned;
but the possibility of a removal of the
Institute to another site — the rapid
encroachment of retail business having
rendered its present location in many
ways disadvantageous — has made it
seem wise to erect, at the present time,
only this temporary building, in
which, however, will be placed all the
new apparatus which would have gone
to the furnishing of the permanent
new building and which will make the
department of Electrical Engineering
the most perfectly equipped in the
country.

For the same reason, it has been
deemed wise to postpone the erection
of another building which was to have
been begun this year, — the Walker

Memorial. The land for this build-
ing will be provided by the Corpora-
tion, but the cost of its erection will
be borne largely by the alumni, as a
memorial to President Walker. It
will contain fully equipped gymnasia
for the use of all the students of the
college and will have also a number
of rooms fitted up in such a way as
to minister especially to the social side
of undergraduate life.

Its laboratories being, as already
stated, that feature in which the In-
stitute has been most fully a pioneer,
it may be of interest to give a few
details regarding them.

The chemical laboratories, now un-
der the general charge of Professor
Henry P. Talbot, a graduate of the
Institute, were developed by ex-Presi-
dent Crafts, by William Ripley Nich-
ols, a potent force in the right progress
of the Institute, by Charles H. Wing,
by John M. Ordway, now at Tulane
University; by Thomas M. Drown,
now president of Lehigh University,
and by the late Lewis M. Norton.
Their enlargement having been made
possible by the gift of Mr. Jerome G.
Kidder, for whom they are named,
these laboratories are believed to be
the most complete in this country, and
probably in the world, for the giving
of instruction to large classes. Be-
sides the main laboratories devoted to
general and analytical chemistry, there
are special laboratories for organic, in-
dustrial and sanitary chemistry, for
oil and gas analysis, for the examina-
tion of sugars and starches, for dyeing
and coloring, and for other particular
kinds of research. In all, there are
over forty rooms devoted to chemical
analysis alone ; and yet the department
is most uncomfortably crowded. That

Nichols Library, Department of Chemistry

the teaching is thoroughly individual
and personal for every student is well
shown by the fact that the seven
hundred students accommodated are
taught by nine professors and nine-
teen instructors and assistants.

A similar range and specialization
is found in the laboratories of physics,
which, established by President Rogers
and built up by Edward C. Pickering,
now Director of the Harvard College
Observatory, have been vastly ex-
tended by Professor Charles R. Cross
during his twenty-five years of ser-
vice, and by that splendid man, whose
memory is so dear to all the students
who came under his teaching, the late
Silas W. Holman. The extraordinary
expansion of the physical sciences, es-
pecially in the direction of electricity,
has rendered these laboratories for a
number of years quite inadequate, also,

to the demands upon them, and has
made necessary a new building, al-
ready referred to, and has called for
the creation of a separate department
of Electrical Engineering, to the head
of which Dr. Louis Duncan of New
York, the distinguished engineer, has
been appointed.

These laboratories of chemistry and
of physics are the most used of any in
the Institute ; almost every student, no
matter what his professional course,
must experiment in them frequently
and upon principles fundamental
to all scientific research. But no
less important are the more strictly
professional laboratories, such as those
of mining engineering and metallur-
gy, fitly named the John Cummings
Laboratories, and developed by Pro-
fessor Robert H. Richards and his col-
leagues from the humblest beginnings ;

153

154

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

the biological laboratories, under the
charge of Professor William T.
Sedgwick, in which most important
work in bacteriology has been and is
being done ; and the laboratories of
engineering and applied mechanics,
wherein is a multiplicity of apparatus
for steam and hydraulic engineering,
together with an Emery machine of
100,000 pounds' capacity, and a num-
ber of lesser machines designed for
every sort of testing work, the re-
sults of which are authoritative among
engineers.

In these various laboratories the
student pursues, at first with the most
careful oversight, later with ever en-
larging freedom, real research work
into the principles of pure and applied
science. As a prerequisite to his de-
gree, every young man must take up
some distinct problem for a thesis,
must work it out in his own way, but
with suggestions and occasional guid-
ance, to the farthest point possible to
him, and must present his conclusions
in writing to the Faculty. By this
means the path from the schoolroom
to the independence of the office or the
shop is made complete, and the young
man is taught so far to depend upon
himself that the responsibilities which
active life will throw upon him shall
not prove too heavy nor too abrupt a
test.

In addition, however, to the regular
classroom instruction, the students of
the higher years make frequent excur-
sions to mills, chemical establishments
and other places where the processes
of applied science may be studied ; and
those in civil engineering, in mining
and in geology do real and extended
work in the field, making topograph-
ical surveys, laying out lines for rail-

roads, and performing other practical
exercises. Moreover, in most of the
courses, there is provision for ex-
tended summer excursions and ses-
sions. The mining and metallurgical
engineers, for example, travel every
summer to Pennsylvania, Nova Sco-
tia, or the West, where large mining
and metallurgical operations are carried
on ; in the civil engineering department
a summer course extending over a
number of weeks, and in which the stu-
dents perform definite and recorded
work in geodesy, hydrography and
surveying is held ; while the students
in architecture make visits for sketch-
ing and study to places noted for good
architectural examples. Twice, in
such summer sessions, have a number
of young architects gone abroad under
the leadership of one or more of their
professors. A number and variety of
summer courses in mathematics and
languages are also given. The regu-
lar teaching is further supplemented,
in all departments, by a series of lec-
tures and informal talks by experts not
connected with the Faculty, but brought
in to stimulate the students and to en-
large their horizon by letting them
hear and meet men eminent in their
various professions. President Pritch-
ett has extended this excellent plan
by calling every month some famous
man to speak to the assembled body of
the students words of counsel, en-
couragement and hearty helpfulness.

The authorities are not content,
however, simply to give their students
a thorough grounding in scientific
principles and to afford them ample
practice in proving those truths. They
never lose sight of the fact that these
young men come to them not merely
for the acquiring of professional

Life Class

knowledge and experience, but also
and chiefly for a higher education.
And it is their belief that real educa-'
tion — which means a broadening of
the young man, a quickening of his
ambition and an inspiration to secure
an ever firmer hold upon the essential
things of life — is as surely obtained
by the study of pure and applied
science, supplemented by modern lan-
guages, history and economics, as by
the study of the ancient languages,
supplemented by philosophy, history,
literature and aesthetics. The only
thing to be avoided in any higher edu-
cation is narrowness of view, pedantry
and sham; and as an antidote to these
there are no better courses of studv
than those offered in the leading col-
leges of technology to-day. This work
of a real college, not of a simple pro-
fessional school, the Institute from its
earliest day has planned to give.
Therefore, from that very beginning
there has been as ample provision as
possible for so-called general, as dis-

tinguished from professional, studies.
Every student is required to attend full
courses in English composition, Eng-
lish literature, French, German, his-
tory and political economy. More-
over, with a view to fitting young men
for business positions of responsibility
or for government and municipal ser-
vice, there was early established a gen-
eral course, in which the student, upon
a thorough groundwork of scientific
study and experimentation, specializes,
not in engineering, but in history,
economics, literature and sociology. To
show that the attention given to this
part of the work is as complete as
upon the engineering side, it is but
necessary to say that in the modern
foreign languages (under Professor
Adolph Rambeau), in English (under
Professor Arlo Bates), in economics
(under Professor Davis R. Dewey),
and in history (under Professor C. F.
A. Currier), there are eight professors
and twelve instructors. It is interest-
ing to note that in the work in English

155

156

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

other departments in the college co-
operate, and the fitness and accuracy
with which the student expresses him-
self are regarded as essential factors
in his written recitation or report.

Probably because of its carefully
prescribed courses and of the fact that
daily work counts in the student's rec-
ord for as much as, if not for more
than, examinations, and because the In-
stitute has followed the policy of sub-
mitting young men to its own tests dur-
ing the first year rather than of making
the entrance examinations the touch-
stone of the pupil's fitness, the impres-
sion is somewhat general that the
courses are very difficult, and that
none but the strongest should under-
take them. This is far, however, from
being the case; for experience has
demonstrated in thousands of instances
that young men of ordinary ability
and health can accomplish the regular
work with credit, provided only that
proper attention is paid to each day's
duties and that no attempt is made to
crowd into the few days before an ex-
amination the studying that should
have been done weeks or months be-
fore.

The pages of the student's annual,
"Technique," make it plain that the
Institute course is not one long
"grind" ; but that, on the contrary, it
permits of a large amount of social
life and athletic activity. The "Tech-
nique" issued in 1901 shows nine
Greek letter fraternities, with a total
membership of 190; five other local
societies, with at least 100 members ;
a general athletic association, which
enters men at various intercollegiate
and other meets ; a track team ; a foot-
ball association ; baseball teams ; a ten-
nis association ; a hare and hounds

club; a hockey club; a basket-ball
team; five professional societies; the
Walker Club, which has given several
successful plays, as have also two
other clubs, Die Gesellschaft and
L'Avenir; four or five clubs of men
from a certain city or preparatory
school ; a large students' Y. M. C. A.
and a Co-operative Society, both of
which do excellent work. Moreover,
there are Glee, Banjo and Mandolin
clubs, which give many concerts in
and around Boston; a "Tech Show,"
attracting large audiences to its per-
formances, is given in one of the
theatres every spring; and a "Tech-
nology Field Day," in which freshmen
and sophomores engage in athletic
contests, is held in the fall. The stu-
dents publish, too, a weekly paper, the
Tech, which is very creditable. Stu-
dent dinners, formal and informal, are
of frequent occurrence; and in April
a "Junior Week" provides for dances,
teas and other sociabilities.

This social activity, furthermore,
does not end with the student's grad-
uation; for, in addition to the Alumni
Association, founded in 1875, which
holds a notable annual banquet and an
annual reception to the graduating
class, there are now branch alumni as-
sociations in Chicago, New York, Den-
ver, Philadelphia, Washington, the
Connecticut Valley, Pittsburg, Buf-
falo, Cincinnati and the Merri-
mack Valley. All these associa-
tions are brought closely into touch
with one another by the Associa-
tion of Class Secretaries and by the
Technology Review, a. quarterly maga-
zine, in which, in addition to leading
articles relating to questions of gen-
eral and of local education, are chron-
icled all important facts and items

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

157

regarding the Institute itself, its stu-
dents and its graduates. The . head-
quarters of the Association of Class
Secretaries, of the Technology Review
and of much of the Institute social life
is at the Technology Club, housed
pleasantly near the buildings, and with
a membership — including sixty under-
graduates— of nearly seven hundred.
In addition to furnishing the usual
comforts of a clubhouse, it provides
for its members each winter a series of
talks from notable men from all parts
of the country and upon a wide range
of interesting topics.

In its thirty-seven years of exist-
ence, then, the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology has graduated 2,655
young men and 56 young women. It
has, moreover, given from one to four
years of education to some five thou-
sand more youth, who, for one reason
or another, did not follow the full
range of the entire four years of study.
It has established thirteen separate
courses, has erected seven buildings,
and has accumulated property — main-
ly the real estate which it occupies —
valued at three and one-half million
dollars. Its last annual catalogue
shows on its rolls seven fellows, nine
graduate students (candidates for an
advanced degree), 986 regular under-
graduates (candidates for the bache-
lor's degree) and 413 special under-
graduates. Of this total of 1,415 stu-
dents no less than 106 have been
graduated from other colleges or uni-
versities before coming to the Insti-
tute. This is a wonderful advance
from the humble beginnings in the
Mercantile Library Building, and it
has been accomplished in the face of
obstacles that only those who have had
to meet them could possibly conceive

Technology Club

and through a poverty that has at
times been tragic. As compared with
other institutions, the resources have
been painfully inadequate. There
have been generous gifts from indi-
viduals, from the Commonwealth and
from the United States; but most of
this money has had to go into build-
ings and land, or to maintain free
scholarships. Therefore, the Institute
is to-day poor ; not simply because the
college is developing as fast as its re-
sources permit, but with a pinching
poverty which keeps its President and
his colleagues always anxious, always
hard pressed, always forced to narrow,
often to ultimately expensive econo-
my. The very excellence of the col-
lege has kept it needy, through the
extraordinary demands upon it of
large numbers and of ever new work

158

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

to be done. Had the Institute but an
unrestricted endowment of three or
four millions it could and would at
once develop in new paths, — especially
in the direction of research and grad-
uate study, — with the highest advan-
tage to itself and the greatest benefit
to the community.

On the educational side, in addition
to training these thousands of young
men, helping them to be industrial
leaders and useful citizens, and send-
ing them to every part of the world, so
that to-day it is difficult to go to the
remotest geographical point without
meeting an Institute man, this "School
of Industrial Science" has done much
pioneer work of the highest impor-
tance to the country and the world.
The first to demonstrate the value of
the laboratory in the teaching of con-
siderable bodies of young men, it was

"the' first to equip a mining and metallur-
gical laboratory for the instruction of
students by actual treatment of ores in
large quantities; the first to establish a
laboratory for teaching the nature and use
of steam, and a laboratory for testing the
strength of materials of construction in
commercial sizes; and the first in America
to establish a department of architecture.
Later still, it was the first school in
America to establish distinct and special-

ized courses of study in electrical
engineering, in sanitary engineering, in
chemical engineering and in naval archi-
tecture."— Professor Swain.

In these and in hundreds of other
ways the Institute of Technology has
won for herself in this country and
abroad a reputation of which her grad-
uates have every reason to be proud.
An exemplar to all institutions of the
kind, she has seen many such estab-
lish themselves here and in Europe,
and has found their success but adding
to her numbers and her fame. And
most of her children are fully worthy
of her. It is no idle boast to say that
wherever he is known, the "Institute
man" is recognized as the safe man,
the man of integrity, the man of vigor
and wise initiative, the "man who
can." The great need that the indus-
trial leaders of the middle of the nine-
teenth century saw has been filled, but
in a sense far greater than those men
anticipated. So wisely, under Profes-
sor Rogers's influence, was that educa-
tional want supplied that there has
gone forth from the college which he
created not simply an army of trained
men, but also a social and moral in-
fluence which not even he could possi-
bly foresee.

Piekce Building

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Courtesy of Literary Digest

Goethe

By Alice Crossette Hall

' An diesem Orte weilte Goethe Mit Vorliebe, sinnend und dichtend In den
Herbstagen 1814 und 181 5 "

THERE, too, I oft have stood and viewed with awe
The scene he loved, the quaint old town 'below,

The brooding hills, the shining Neckar's flow
Into the distance, where at eve I saw
The sun o'er all the far Rhine valley draw

A filmy veil, within whose tender glow

The still more distant mountains seemed to grow
Unreal as dreams ; a scene without a flaw.
Nor could I tell which most appealed to me,

The beauty of that vision, or the thought
That under its supreme enchantment, he

The gifted poet, had so often caught,
In the high service of his minstrelsy,

Fresh inspiration. Doubly hallowed spot !

159

The Price of an Angel

By Ella Middleton Tybout

THE Ferndale Marble Yard
was quite a flourishing in-
stitution, judging from the
display of monuments ar-
tistically grouped about the front
door of the orifice. There were all
sorts and kinds of designs supposed
to convey delicate consolation to the
afflicted. What, for instance, could
be more comforting to a mother than
two little lambs curveting on a ped-
estal, carved with the most sublime
disregard to all known laws of anat-
omy ? Broken shafts abounded ; also
crosses with "At Rest" in rustic let-
ters upon them, with a space for the
name left, blank, to be filled in when
opportunity offered. Children going
to and from school used to stop and
peer through the fence, choosing
what stone they would have erected
over them, and I regret to say more
than one free fight had occurred over
the above mentioned lambs, as they
were a popular design and not
enough of them to go around.

One morning in early April Mr.
Cutts, owner and proprietor of the
yard, sat on the doorsteps of his of-
fice and, as the sun felt warm and
comfortable, he had removed his coat
and sat in his shirt sleeves, thus mak-
ing himself a herald of the approach-
ing summer. He was watching a
large figure coming down the road,
and chuckled softly to himself as he
did so.
160

"Here," he soliloquized, address-
ing a yellow dog who sat beside him,
"here comes Deacon Grimes agin.
I'll work off that stun on him yit, ef
I hold off long enough. Ah, good
mornin' Deacon."

Deacon Grimes mopped his face
with a large red handkerchief for he
had walked swiftly.

"Good mornin' ," he responded
genially, "warm weather for this sea-
son."

Mr. Cutts agreed that it was un-
usual, and Deacon Grimes unlatched
the gate and walked up the path,
seating himself beside the yellow dog.
Silence ensued.

"The trees," volunteered the Dea-
con, "is all budded, pretty much;
they'll be out soon. Shouldn't won-
der ef we had a cold snap now."

"Shouldn't wonder," said Mr.
Cutts.

Again silence while the yellow dog
diligently searched for an annoying
flea. The Deacon absently put his
hand in his pocket and jingled his
loose coin.

"Price of angels gone down any?"
he inquired.

"Not a cent," replied Mr. Cutts.

"Cash, y' know," suggested the
Deacon.

"Angels," said Mr. Cutts, "is
troublesome things ; anybody who
has had anything to do with makin'
an angel will tell you it ain't no joke.

THE PRICE OF AN ANGEL

l6l

The carvin' of the inside feathers of
the wings alone is enough to> make
the man doin' the job wish they was
provided with scales instead, and it
ain't alluz easy to git the finger that's
pintin' upwards jest plum with the
rest of the hand, nuther longer nor
shorter than the fingers that's curled
up you know, and to git the proper
resigned yit hopeful expression on
the face. Ef there's any of your ac-
quaintance thinks it's easy to make
an angel, you send 'em to me and I'll
talk to 'em."

"Well," said the Deacon, "I was
jest askin' fur information. Business
good?"

"So, so," said Mr. Cutts, "we've
got orders from Millville for two 'At
Rests,' a 'Not Lost but Gone Before',
and three or four 'Feed My Lambs' ;
measles is ragin' over there."

Silence again, and then the Deacon
observed that he must be moving on.

"Mebbe you'd like to see the rig-
ger agin," suggested Mr. Cutts.

Deacon Grimes didn't care if he
did, so they went inside where the
choicer stones that were not exposed
to the weather were kept.

The yellow dog remained on the
doorstep and by so> doing was the
first to greet another visitor. A ve-
hicle of the style known as a "rocka-
way," drawn by an old gray mare,
drew up at the gate after many jerks
at the reins and mysterious sounds
supposed to be encouraging to the
mare who, after the manner of her
kind, paid not the slightest attention
to them, but stopped where she
thought proper. A round, good na-
tured face was thrust out of the cur-
tains and a voice called loudly for Mr.
Cutts, but as that gentleman was en-

gaged in explaining the fine points in
angel making he naturally did not
respond. Clearly there was nothing
to be done but get out and knock at
the office door, which the occupant of
the carriage prepared to do. Now
there was a great deal of the lady in
question and getting out was a serious
matter ; first she had to put out of her
lap all the parcels she had collected
during her visit to the village store;
then she had to turn around and
slowly back down, holding on firmly
to the sides of the rockaway and feel-
ing helplessly about with her foot un-
til she found the step.

Whatever possessed the yellow
dog, I cannot say. In general his
manners were very gentlemanly, but
the spring sunshine must have gone
to his head for he did a dreadful
thing. He had strolled down to the
gate to see the lady alight and had
watched her quietly enough until she
turned her back, but no sooner did he
see a foot encased in a prunella slip-
per with an ample display of white
stocking around an ankle, once
shapely, than with a joyous bark he
rushed forward and caught that ankle
between his teeth. To be sure he did
not bite it and had no intention of do-
ing so, but he gave it several vigor-
ous shakes; he meant no harm, but
the temptation of that prunella shoe
was too strong, and he had yielded.
Then ensued a harrowing scene.
Free herself of the dog she could not,
although she kicked violently;
neither could she climb back into the
rockaway for the dog anchored her
firmly outside. Also, she was at a
decided disadvantage for she could
not see her tormentor and had vis-
ions of bloodhounds and hydrophobia,

162

THE PRICE OF AN ANGEL

and death in fearful agony. So she
shrieked loudly, while the gray mare
stood like a statue and the yellow dog
hung on bravely.

"You see," said Mr. Cutts, inside
the office, "this is a work of art. It
ain't every day — "

He paused suddenly; through the
window came the voice of a woman,

"Help ! Help ! Murder ! Fire ! Help !"

Beauty in distress having never
failed in its appeal to chivalrous man-
hood, it is needless to say that both
gentlemen rushed at once to the res-
cue, and Mr. Cutts bore away the
aggressor and locked him in an out-
house, while Deacon Grimes went to
the assistance of the lady and, with
difficulty, hoisted her back into the
rockaway. No sooner did she find her-
self safe once more than she burst
into tears, complaining that her heart
beat like a trip-hammer and felt as
though it might burst.

The Deacon fanned her with his
hat and assured her that the dog
should die an early and violent death,
so, after a while, she became a- trifle
more composed and announced her
intention of driving on without waiting
for the return of Mr. Cutts, as she
felt much too flustered to transact
business. She also accepted with grati-
tude his offer to drive her through
the village. When Mr. Cutts re-
turned to apologize for the unseemly
conduct of his dog, the rockaway was
a mere black speck in the distance.

"I suppose, Mis. Oldham," said
Deacon Grimes, "that you come here
on the same sad errand that I did."

Mrs. Oldham sighed and nodded.

"It's the only thing that's left us
now," resumed the Deacon, "and fur
my part I feel a melancholy pleasure

in the selectin' of a stun that I feel
sure Hetty would have liked, ef God
in his mercy had seen fit to let her do
the choosin' of it."

There was a rumor in the village
that Mrs. Grimes, during her lifetime,
had not often had the privilege of
choosing anything for herself.

"What a woman she was," rumi-
nated the Deacon, "what a woman
she was. Do you recall her riz bis-
cuits?"

"I ought to," responded Mrs. Old-
ham, "seein' as I give her the recipe
fur 'em ; two pints o' flour — "

"And Reuben Oldham," he con-
tinued, "what a man he was. Alwuz
ready to lead a prayer meetin', alwuz
beforehand with his work, alwuz keen
at a bargain — "

Here Reuben's widow burst into
tears.

"O, to think of what I've lost," she
sobbed, "ef he'd only waited until
the crops was in I think I could have
bore up better."

"He left you the house, didn't he?"
inquired the Deacon, gently pressing
her hand in his.

"And farm," replied Mrs. Old-
ham, slightly returning the pressure.

Not very long after the above con-
versation Mrs. Oldham went to the
cemetery to inspect for the first time
her husband's monument, which
stood glistening in the sunshine with
all the hardness and coldness of
which granite is capable. A broken
column supported an open bible on
which appeared the words "He is not
Dead, but Sleepeth." The footstone, in
rustic letters, announced the fact that
it was a Widow's Tribute. The effect
was most imposing, and it was no
wonder Mrs. Oldham was transfixed

THE PRICE OF AN ANGEL

163

with admiration as she sat on the
little iron bench placed there for her
comfort and convenience when she
came to mourn,

Mr. Cutts stood by her side with
an air of pride, pardonable under the
circumstances.

"Well Mis. Oldham," he said,
"does it suit you?"

"Mr. Cutts," she replied, "it does.
You've done yourself proud this time,
and ef Rube could speak he'd tell you
so fur himself."

"There ain't a handsomer stun in
the place, Mis. Oldham; I seen to it
myself. It was a melancholy pleas-
ure, so to speak, to have everything
of the very best. I'm glad you're sat-
isfied for I done my best to please
you."

Reuben's widow produced her
handkerchief with a preliminary
sniff.

"It's all that's left me now," she
said, "A widder's life's a mighty
lonely one, Mr. Cutts. Mebbe it
won't be very long before you're
carvin' another stun to match this
one. You'll put on it, after the name
and age, 'Relict of Reuben Oldham,'
and also 'In Death they were United,'
won't you? You'll bear that in mind
as a sacred trust when I'm gone. Oh,
dear! Oh, dear!"

Here the handkerchief wa's brought
into vigorous action.

"I never could bear that word
'Relict,' she said in broken accents.
"Soimehow I alluz think about rem-
nants when I hear it. But what am I
except a remnant, without a dear
husband's strong arm to lean upon?
Oh, dear."

"Don't take on so, Mis. Oldham,
don't," said Mr. Cutts, seating him-

self beside her and timidly patting her
hand. "I can't bear to see you so up-
set. You oughtn't to be grievin' so fur
Rube when he's gone to glory in an
ebony coffin, on a satin piller, with
everything as handsome as could be."
"I done what I could," she sobbed,
"I spared no expense."

"So you didn't, Mis. Oldham,
that's a fact. And just see the moni-
ment you've put up! Why the whole
country'll be talkin' about it. There's
Deacon Grimes now; what a sad
sight it is to see a man haggle over a
little filthy lucre when an angel for
his departed partner's at stake. Ef
it wasn't fur the moral effect on him
I do believe I'd come down to his
price jest to see poor, dear Mrs.
Grimes provided with a moniment."

"How good you are Mr. Cutts."

"O, not at all, not at all. I ain't
comin' down one red cent, because
I believe it's my Christian dooty to
show Deacon Grimes the sin of stin-
giness. But I must be goin' ; it ain't
a very lively hum I'm goin' to, Mis.
Oldham. A bachelor's a poor thing
at the best of times, but as night
comes on and he sets down to eat his
lonely supper, he sometimes wishes
things wasn't as they is ; he ain't even
got the comfortin' reflection that they
isn't as they was."

"A lonely supper's a cheerless
meal, Mr. Cutts, as I know too well.
Ef you don't mind a melancholy
companion I'd be pleased to have
you set down with me to-night. I
don't seem to relish my own company
lately. O, dear."

"I'd be proud to come, Mis. Old-
ham. And as fur — "

Here a heavy step on the gravel
interrupted them, and Deacon Grimes

164

THE PRICE OF AN ANGEL

appeared, bearing in his arms a red
geranium in full bloom.

"I've jest brought you this little
flower, Mis. Oldham," he said, "to
put by the side of Rube. I've been
plantin' some of 'em beside my dear
wife. She set great store by red ge-
raniums, did Hetty: alluz had a row
of 'em in tin cans in the kitchen win-
ders."

"A white marble angel'd look a
heap better beside Mis. Grimes than
red geraniums, Deacon," here inter-
rupted Mr. Cutts, briskly leading the
way to that lady's last resting place.
"Jest pictur to yourself that angel
a-standin' glistenin' at her head, with
its wings furled, so to speak, and its
finger pintin' ever upwards. It don't
need no words carved on it, that an-
gel don't. Why it's the whole Ser-
mon on the Mount and 23rd Psalm
combined in one. And then the lo-
cation ! Jest think of that, Deacon."

"It is a good location fur a hand-
some moniment," murmured the
Deacon.

"There ain't a spot in the cemetery
like it. Right at the top of this slope,
it couldn't help bein' seen the fust
thing from any part of the grounds,
and it di-rect\y faces the main en-
trance, had you noticed that, Deacon ?"

"I've told you my figgur fur that
stun, Si Cutts, and I don't expect to
raise on't. Ef you're thinkin' of goin'
now, I'd be pleased to drive you hum,
Mis. Oldham."

"Mis. Oldham's goin' to walk by
way of the short cut with me, Deacon
Grimes."

"Well, Mr. Cutts, I did say I'd go
that way to be sure, but I'm feelin'
ruther tired, and as long as the Dea-
con's so kind as to ask me — "

By autumn all Ferndale was in-
tensely interested in the romance
transpiring in their midst. No one
could decide which was the favored
suitor.

Deacon Grimes, it is true, went al-
most daily and stood with bowed
head beside the mortal remains of
Mrs. Grimes until he could catch
sight of a prunella shoe and bomba-
zine skirt, when he would immedi-
ately betake himself to the iron bench
beside the late Mr. Oldham, and
there converse with Reuben's widow
concerning their respective losses in ;
the subdued tones suitable to the oc- 1
casion. If, as often happened, duty I
brought Mr. Cutts to the cemetery, •
he immediately made his presence |
known in as obtrusive a manner as j
possible.

Mr. Cutts, for his part, often es- 1
corted the widow to and from prayer1
meeting. At such times Deacon
Grimes prayed loudly and at length
that the good Lord would strengthen
our backs to bear patiently the bur-
dens whereunder we were stagger-
ing; also that we might be delivered
from our enemies and from those that
despitefully used us and persecuted
us.

And the angel remained the prop-
erty of Mr. Cutts. The Deacon
would often go and look longingly at
it (when he knew Mr. Cutts was not
there), and he registered a mental
vow that somehow or other, sooner,'
or later, the angel should be his, and!
for just what he chose to give for it.j

There were rather strained rela-1
tions of late between the two men,
who began to watch each other nar-
rowly. Did the Deacon stop at the
Oldham homestead with an espe-

THE PRICE OF AN ANGEL

165

cially fine side of bacon from the last
killing, just so surely would Mr.
Cutts happen along with some extra
good cider, or a few of his golden
pippins. The lady herself was strict-
ly impartial; the bacon was the best
she had seen that year, and she had
just been longing for some cider.

Matters came to a crisis in this
manner.

It was the Thursday prayer meet-
ing and an especially large attend-
ance had been requested, to give
thanks for the recovery of the minis-
ter's wife from a severe illness. Mrs.
Oldham came alone and took a seat
well forward. Mr. Cutts and Deacon
Grimes entered almost simultan-
eously and marched, one up the left
hand aisle and the other up the right,
sitting down casually, one on each
side of Mrs. Oldham, and the meet-
ing progressed as usual. At last Mr.
Cutts rose to make a few remarks.

He spoke of the joy of once more
seeing their dear sister in their midst,
raised from a bed of much suffering,
and mentioned the patience with
which she had borne her affliction.
Then he digressed to the subject of
woman in general, calling men poor
worms in comparison. He referred
to Jacob serving seven years for
Rachel, and said that in his opinion
it was nothing for Jacob to be proud
of; surely he should have been quite
willing to serve seventy years, if
necessary, when Rachel awaited him
as a reward. He (Mr. Cutts) would
have been glad, in Jacob's place, to
serve seventy times seven. After a
few concluding remarks he sat down,
having created something of a sensa-
tion. Mrs. Oldham had been chris-
tened Rachel.

"Let us pray," said Deacon Grimes.

If Mr. Cutts had been eloquent, he
was quite equalled by the Deacon.
He, also, commenced by giving
thanks for their dear sister returned
to them from the jaws of death, and
who had so narrowly escaped repos-
ing on Abraham's bosom. He told
the Lord, confidentially, that he knew
he (Deacon Grimes) was not perfect,
but neither was Abraham perfect and
yet Sarah had married him. He
spoke vaguely of strong men weeping
in great grief and being comforted by
the gentler sex ; and alluded in an ab-
stracted manner to a Pharisee, pre-
sumably in their midst, who had al-
most thanked the Lord he was not as
other men. The Deacon agreed with
him in giving those thanks; he con-
sidered that it would be unjust to
other men not to do so. Then he
said "Amen," mopped his brow, and
sat down.

The minister, feeling something was
wrong, requested some one to start a
hymn before benediction. Mrs. Old-
ham immediately responded with
"Guide me, O thou great Jehovah."
It was felt by many to be appropriate.

She walked home with Deacon
Grimes on her right and Mr. Cutts
on her left; when they reached the
house both accepted her invitation to
come in "and set a spell." It was not
a cheerful evening. Any topic of gen-
eral interest introduced by the Deacon
was promptly suppressed by Mr.
Cutts, and vice versa. Mrs. Oldham
struggled bravely to maintain the
conversation, but the gloom and si-
lence of her companions proved too
much for her. The air outside had
been frosty and the heat of the fire
was pleasant ; her chair was large and

166

THE PRICE OF AN ANGEL

very comfortable, and as she swayed
to and fro she seemed to be looking
through a veil at two men a long dis-
tance away. Further and further they
retreated, until at last they disap-
peared and she gave audible and con-
vincing proof that she slept. Then
Mr. Cutts leaned forward and ad-
dressed Deacon Grimes in a sepul-
chral whisper.

"When do you calculate on leavin'?"
he inquired.

"About the same time you do," was
the reply.

Silence for a few minutes, broken at
regular intervals by sounds from the
rocking chair.

"Look here, Deacon," said Mr.
Cutts, "we might jest as well talk this
matter over fust as last. We can't
both have her."

"No," agreed the Deacon, "we
can't. Nor yet her farm."

"It does seem to me," pursued Mr.
Cutts, "that seein' as you've had a
trial at it onct before and I ain't, you
might be willin' fur me to have a show
this time."

"Marriage," said the Deacon, "in
some ways ain't all you expect it to
be ; in others its a blamed sight more.
I don't know as I'm in any hurry to
enter the blessed state agin, but I seen
you meant business, and bein' as you
served me a mighty mean trick in
chargin' jest twict what that angel's
worth (the way it riz in price when
you seen I wanted it was surprising
I thought I'd set in and cut you out.
I knowed I could do it ef I put my
mind to it."

"O hush," said Mr. Cutts, in agony,
"she's wakin' up."

"No danger; when they snore like
that they're good fur some time.

Well, as I was sayin', I set in jest to
cut you out, then I begun to take
notice on my own account. The
farms jine, you know, and everything
seems kinder suitable."

"Deacon," said Mr. Cutts, in a
burst of generosity, "ef you'll shear
off now you shall have the angel fur
what you fust offered."

"And that's too much. I dunno as
I want to shear off, and I dunno as
I want the angel after all. I never
did like the shape of the nose. I
reckon I'll stay on. I've got jest as
good a show as you have, ef not a
lettle mite better."

Mr. Cutts grew excited.

"Deacon," he cried, "ef you'll go
off quiet, and say nothin' to nobody,
I'll give you the angel free. I can't
say anything fairer than that, can I?"

"O, I dunno," said the Deacon,
"how do I know you won't go back
on your bargain when , daylight
comes?"

Mr. Cutts drew from his pocket
pencil and paper. He wrote steadily
for some minutes, then passed them
over to the Deacon.

"You sign the fust," he said, "and I
sign the other."

The first paper read, "I hereby for-
ever give up any claim to the hand
of Rachel Oldham;" the second, "Re-
ceived from Deacon Grimes amount
in full for marble angel."

"Well," said the Deacon, "I reckon
I might as well do it. I ain't very
hard hit nohow, and there don't ap-
pear to be no other way fur me to
git possession of that angel."

"And now," suggested Mr. Cutts,
"don't you think you'd better be mov-
in' on?"

"I wonder," said the Deacon re-

THE COLONIAL PARSON

167

flectively, as he put on his hat, "which
of us has made the best bargain."

"I'd ruther have a livin' woman
than a marble angel any day," replied
Mr. Cutts, "I done you brown this
time Deacon, sure."

"Well," said the Deacon, "I ain't
so sure ; angels is dumb. You're to
be pitied fur you don't know jest what
you're doin' and I do. I'll ask your
opinion about bargains this day two
years, ef we both live that long. I

wish you much joy ; may you live long
and prosper. You kin set up that
angel tomorrow in the cemetry ; you
know where it goes. I'll dance at
your weddin', Si, and keep dark about
tonight, till I see fit to speak. Good-
bye."

The closing of the door behind the
deacon woke Mrs. Oldham, and she
started up rubbing her eyes.

"I do believe I'm gettin' drowsy,"
she said.

The Colonial Parson

By Homer J. Webster

THE contrast between the
good old times of colony
days in America and the
present is shown in no way
more clearly than by comparing the
life and work of the pastor then and
now. The contrast is so strikingly in
favor of the present that one is im-
pressed with the advantages of our
division of labor. In a word, the par-
son now has but one thing, while the
colonial parson had almost every-
thing to do. We should not think
now of consulting a pastor on a ques-
tion of law or medicine; nor should
we expect to find him fishing, trap-
ping or farming to increase the sup-
plies of his table ; nor, again, conduct-
ing a little private school, acting as
town clerk, figuring and dealing ex-
tensively in trade and driving hard
bargains in horse-deals and other
commercial lines; yet all these activ-
ities came, as a matter of course, with-

in the sphere of the colonial parson.
Nor were they indeed a mere matter
of diversion; they were serious and
necessary business with him and
meant his bread and butter. Not that
all were so situated that such voca-
tions were necessary, but most of
them were. To understand our sub-
ject we must know his environment;
we must go with* him and share his
toils and difficulties, we must study
the crude conditions with which he
had to deal; the people with whom
he worked; the house in which he
preached; the attitude of the colonists
towards him, towards the church and
the Sabbath. The church, the par-
son and the Sabbath were almost
everything in New England. The
first was practically also the school
and the state. Attendance upon it
was compulsory and it afforded the
one great opportunity for all the
neighborhood to assemble and see

168

THE COLONIAL PARSON

each other once a week. We must
understand that Sunday was always
the Lord's day, emphatically and ex-
clusively, even though the devil
might claim the other six ; and that
whatever the parson said was so, be-
cause he said it, and must not be
questioned; that he held within his
hand the power of earth and hell and
woe be to him who should cross his
path. When we remember all this, we
are prepared to understand the work
and character of the colonial parson.
And first as to the observance of
the Sabbath. This always began on
Saturday evening so that all might
prepare for the following day. Sun-
day, strictly speaking, was from
6 P. M. Saturday to 6 P. M. Sunday.
Saturday evening was the quiet re-
ligious evening of the week and was
spent at home in Scripture reading,
prayers, and catechising in the family
circle. Then when Sunday evening
came the young people might indulge
in parties and social events. But
from six to six, beware ! God forbid
that any should tread in any but the
very straight and narrow path
marked out by those strict New Eng-
land laws ! In Massachusetts, the
rule was to stop work at three o'clock
Saturday. The practice of observing
Saturday evening was founded on
the Scriptural text, "the evening
and the morning were the first
day" ; and so thoroughly did the
custom become ingrained into New
Englanders that as late as 1855 in
Hartford, Connecticut, the shops were
kept closed on Saturday night. The
so-called "blue laws" of Connecticut
drawn up by Samuel Peters were
false in letter but true in spirit and
reflect the real customs of the times,

as may be illustrated by many ex-
amples. The following, for instance,
were actual occurrences:

In 1670, two lovers, John Lewis
and Sarah Chapman, were accused of
and tried for "sitting together on a
bench under an apple tree in Chap-
man's orchard on the Lord's day."

A Dunstable soldier was fined forty
shillings for "wetting a piece of an
old hat to put in his shoe to protect
his foot on the Lord's day."

George Washington, after he was
president, was stopped by a tithing-
man and narrowly escaped arrest, be-
cause having missed his way, he had
to travel Sunday morning to reach a
certain place for worship.

Captain Kemble of Boston, who
kissed his wife on his doorstep on
Sunday, on his return from a three
years' absence, was fined for "lewd
and unseemly behavior."

Another offender was publicly
whipped for staying in bed on Sun-
day while his only suit, which was
drenching wet, was drying.

Of course absence from church was
visited with fines and severe punish-
ments.

The meeting-houses were located
with a view to protection, conven-
ience and a sightly place. At first
they were built in the valleys, because
the law required the colonists to settle
near them for protection. But later,
with the increased population, this
was impracticable, and they were then
placed on the hilltops. One meeting-
house in Massachusetts was so lo-
cated that twelve others could be seen
from it. The first houses were con-
structed of squared logs and were on
an average about 20x30 feet, and often
with nothing but earth for a floor.

THE COLONIAL PARSON

169

They also served for town halls, forts
or courthouses as well. From the
form of the parallelogram the style of
architecture passed to that of the
square, with a truncated pyramidal
roof, which still later was adorned
with a belfry. The Old South Meet-
ing-house of Boston is representative
of the third type of colonial church
architecture. The first seats were
long, narrow, hard benches made of
hewn planks, supported by four legs,
and having no backs. Soon, "spots
or pues" were sold to the wealthier
families and those who wished to be
together. Many of these pews had
towering partition walls, which were
boarded up so high that only the tops
of the tallest heads could be seen
when the occupants were seated. In
Haverhill church the pews were sold
"provided they would not build so
high as to damnify and hinder the
light of them windows." All around
the inside walls of the pew extended
the benches, so that the occupants all
sat facing the centre.

The seating of the congregation
was a difficult task and often occa-
sioned ill-feeling. Committees were
appointed to seat the parishioners ac-
cording to their standing and wealth,
the richer receiving the front seats.
No warm, cheery stoves ever graced
the early churches. The first stove
in a meeting-house in Massachusetts
was put up by the first congress of
Boston in 1773 ; and it was bitterly
opposed on the ground that it was
"contrary to the custom of their
fathers." The introduction of stoves
caused great opposition, and the sen-
timents of many were voiced by one
who said that "good preaching was
always hot enough for him without

any stove." As the result of having
no stove the noisy practice of knock-
ing the feet on the floor to keep them
from freezing on very cold days was
common. Later came the little foot-
stoves, instead of which one man al-
ways used his dog. One advantage
of having no stove in the church was
that it made a safe place for storing
powder, and it was often used for this
purpose.

Near the church was the "noon-
house" — a long, low, stable-like build-
ing, with a rough stone chimney at
one end, so that a wood fire was kept
in it on Sundays in winter. It was
called so because it was the resort at
the noon hour between the morning
and afternoon services. Here the
horses stood and here at noon the half
frozen congregation collected around
the log fire to eat their cold dinners
and warm up for the long afternoon
service which was to follow.

As to "tenure of office" of the
clergy, they were expected to stay
with the same church for life, so that
the ordination of a minister was one
of the greatest events in the life of the
neighborhood. It was always accom-
panied by a great feast, and, frequent-
ly, by an ordination ball. The vigor
with which these balls were partici-
pated in may be imagined when we
are told that a young man at Danvers
wore out a new pair of shoes in a sin-
gle night, dancing on the sanded floor.
At the ordination feast the minister's
rum was placed on a stand near the
church door, where the good church-
men could drink their fill. Some idea
of the magnitude of these feasts may
be gained from the statement that at
the ordination of Dr. Cummings for
the Old South Church, Boston, 1761,

170

THE COLONIAL PARSON

the feast cost two hundred and fifty
dollars, — a large sum at that day.

The dedications of new churches
were also occasions for great celebra-
tions. At the opening of the Old
Tunnel Meeting-house at Lynn, Mas-
sachusetts, 1682, the feast was held in
a large barn, where the fowls of the
air persisted in flying in and roosting
over the table, scattering feathers and
hay-seeds over the parsons beneath.
We are told, moreover, that here "Mr.
Shepard's face did turn very red and
he catched up an apple and hurled
it at ye birds. But this made a bad
matter worse, for ye fruit being well
aimed, it hit ye legs of a fowl and
brought him floundering and flopping
down on ye table, scattering gravy,
sauce and divers things upon our gar-
ments and in our faces. . . . Mr.
Gerrish, ye Wenham minister, did
once grieviously scandalize Mr. Shep-
ard, who, on suddenly looking up from
his dish, did spy him, as he thot, wink-
ing in an unbecoming way to one of
ye pretty damsels on ye scaffold. And
therefore laboring with him aside for
his misbehavior, it turned out that ye
winking was occasioned by some hay-
seeds that lodged in his eye; whereat
Mr. Shepard was greatly relieved."

A high platform or box was placed
in the front of the church for the min-
ister, from which he could fire down
on the people's heads and easily pick
out any favorite for whom he had a
special message. In the rear was the
gallery, overhead, where the slaves
were seated. At nine o'clock on Sun-
day morning came the call to worship.
The call was made in various ways —
by the firing of three guns, by a drum,
by a conch-shell, by a horn, or some-
times by a flag. Precautions were al-

ways taken against Indian attacks
during the services. For example, in
1640, it was ordered in Massachusetts
that in every township the attendants
at church should carry "a competent
number of pieces, fixed and complete,
with powder and shot and swords
every Lord's day to the meeting-
house." In 1642 six men with mus-
kets and powder and shot were
thought sufficient for the protection
of each church.

The sermons were always extreme-
ly long, the average being from two
to three hours, and the headings
dragged on sometimes even to "twen-
ty-seventhly" and "twenty-eighthly."
Cotton Mather had the injunction,
"Be short," placed in large letters on
his study door ; but he did not apply
it to his sermons and prayers, for at
his own ordination he prayed an hour
and a quarter and preached an hour
and three-quarters. Dr. Lord of Nor-
wich always made a prayer an hour in
length. An early Dutch traveller
who visited New England asserted
that he had heard there on Fast Day
a prayer two hours long. Mr. Simms
preached between four and five hours
at the opening of the New Church at
Boston. If the Puritans had left the
Church of England partly to escape
"stinted prayers," as was said, they
could not complain of these in New
England. A "poor gift in prayer"
was a most deplored and even de-
spised shortcoming in a minister.
This is illustrated by the fact that
Whitefield prayed openly for Parson
Barrett of Hopkinton that "God
would open this dumb dog's mouth."
An old Scotch clergyman in Vermont
tried to prevent the "popish innova-
tion" and "Sabbath profanation" of a

THE COLONIAL PARSON

171

Sunday-school which some daring
members wished to hold at the "noon-
ing," by lengthening all his morning
sermons to three hours and thus re-
ducing the interval between the morn-
ing and afternoon services. Finally,
when the congregation rose in a body
and established the school, he sullenly
spent the "noonings" in the horse-
shed, to which he ostentatiously car^
ried the big church Bible, that he
might not be at the service of the pro-
faning teachers.

The sermons and prayers were no
more remarkable for their length than
for their direct allusions and informal
character. Nothing was too personal
or commonplace to be mentioned in a
sermon; and nothing was considered
irrelevant or outside the preacher's
proper field. All social customs and
manners were likely to be discussed
and criticised in the sermon. Even
the mode of dress was a proper sub-
ject for an elaborate sermon or series
of sermons. The custom of wearing
wigs was frequently attacked from
the pulpit, many whole sermons being
devoted to this one sin. Every un-
usual event in a neighborhood was
sure to bring forth a sermon. The
ministers preached politics and ex-
pounded and advocated business
schemes. Mr. Peters gave many a
long sermon to urge the formation of
a stock company for fishing. In
Connecticut it was ordered by law
that each minister should give sound
and orthodox advice to his congrega-
tion at the time of civil elections.
Rev. Mr. Moody, who was ordained
pastor at York in 1700, while offering
prayer noticed young Ned Ingraham
entering church at this unseemly time,
airing his new suit and attracting the

attention of the congregation. In an
elevated tone of voice he at once ex-
claimed, "And O Lord ! we pray thee,
cure Ned Ingraham of that ungodly
strut." Rev. Mr. Miles, while pray-
ing for rain, is said to have used this
extraordinary phraseology : "O Lord,
thou knowest we do not want thee to
send us a rain which shall pour down
in fury and swell our streams and
carry away our hay-cocks, fences and
bridges ; but, Lord, we want it to come
drizzle-drozzle, drizzle-drozzle, for
about a week. Amen."

Of a very different character, how-
ever, were the awful, weighty, threat-
ening and fearful sermons of Jona-
than Edwards. And of these per-
haps the most remarkable was that
famous one delivered at Enfield, Con-
necticut, July, 1 741. Indeed, this
was probably the most memorable ser-
mon ever preached in New England.
It consisted of powerful and uncom-
promising imprecations from begin-
ning to end. He preached hell fire
and preached it straight. Here are a
few of his passages : "God is even
more angry with many of those now
living, yea, doubtless with many that
are now in this congregation, than he
is with many of those that are now in
hell. For these the wrath of God is
burning ; the pit is prepared, the fire is
ready, the furnace is hot, the flames
do rage and glow. The devils are
waiting and watching for them like
lions restrained that are greedy for
their prey. The unconverted are now
walking over the pit of hell. God
holds them over the pit of hell much
as one holds a spider or some loath-
some insect over the fire; they are ten
thousand times more abominable in
his eyes than a venomous serpent is in

172

THE COLONIAL PARSON

ours. And there is no reason to be
given why those sitting in the pres-
ence of the preacher have not dropped
into hell since they rose in the morn-
ing or since they have been sitting here
in God's house, but God's mere arbi-
trary will — the uncovenanted, un-
obliged forbearance of an incensed
God." Then comes his closing cli-
max : "If we knew that there was one
person and but one, in the whole con-
gregation, that was to be the subject
of this misery, what an awful thing it
would be to think of! If we knew
who it was what an awful sight it
would be to see such a person ! How
might all the rest of the congregation
lift up a lamentable and bitter cry over
him ! But alas ! instead of one, how
many it is likely will remember this
discourse in hell ! And it would be
a wonder if some that are now pres-
ent should not be in hell in a very
short time, before this year is out!
And it would be no wonder if some
persons that now sit here in some
seats of this meeting-house, in health
and quiet and secure, should be there
before to-morrow morning !" Is it any
wonder that in those days of ignorance
and superstition such a sermon as this
should cause a profusion of tears and
outcries of distress? The poor hear-
ers were terrorized and there was in-
deed "weeping and gnashing of teeth."
The minister did not always ob-
serve the Scriptural injunction to
"avoid vain repetitions." One such,
after being newly ordained in a parish,
preached the same sermon three Sun-
days in succession; and in reply to a
deacon, who mildly suggested a
change, he said: "Why no, I can see
no evidence yet that this one has pro-
duced any effect."

As a rule the ministers were the
hardest of workers. Besides their
services they visited the sick and were
often called upon for medical and
legal counsel. Their spare moments
were occupied in teaching and prepar-
ing young men for college, working
on their farms, hearing the children
say their catechisms, fasting and pray-
ing long in their studies. There is no
nobler example of a busy and conse-
crated life than that of Cotton Mather.
His biography is a gold mine of in-
spiration for young men. Graduated
from Harvard at the age of sixteen,
he threw himself into the active whirl
of a busy life. He had twenty-four
hours of the day and seven languages
at his command. An impediment in
his speech forced him to speak slowly,
but made him all the more impressive.
In his diary he writes : "This day I
performed the service of my general
calling, instructed the scholars under
my charge, underwent the diversion
of meals and company, with whom I
was a considerable while; I made a
long sermon and preached it; I spent
more than a little time at the private
meeting, where I preached, and read
over 'Knox's Historical Relation of
the Island of Ceylon.' " A busy man !
And yet he was always courteous to
callers, one of his rules being, "The
man who wants to see me is the man
I wish to see." Another of his rules
was to humble himself in prayer at
least three times every day, and he
taught his children to do the same.
Again and again we are reminded
that the one aim of his life was to do
the most possible good. When we
learn that amid all his difficulties and
labors in his public capacity he was
called upon to endure unusual domes-

THE COLONIAL PARSON

173

tic troubles, our admiration for this
hero is still further increased. He
was married to a third wife, who be-
came deranged, and of his fifteen chil-
dren it was his lot to follow thirteen
to the grave. Of the two who
survived him, the daughter was
attacked by almost all the diseases
to which children are subject and
had to be nursed through her tender
years.

But sometimes there was an occa-
sional drone, even among the busy
hive of colonial parsons. Parson
Judson of Taunton was so lazy that
he preached while sitting, and was so
fond of comfort that on hot summer
days he would give out to the swelter-
ing members the longest psalm he
could find and then retire to a shade
tree and lie there till the task assigned
them was completed, thus escaping
not only the heat, but what was proba-
bly still harder to endure — the sing-
ing.

This brings us to another interest-
ing chapter — the church music. The
musical text was the old "Bay Psalm
Book" or "New England Psalm
Book," the first edition of which ap-
peared at Cambridge about 1640, and
which was the first book of any im-
portance published in New England.
A second edition was brought out in
1647 by President Dunster of Har-
vard College. The one known re-
maining copy of this edition sold for
four hundred and thirty-five dollars.
In 1676 Master Mace wrote of the
singing in the English churches, "It is
sad to hear what whining, toiling, yell-
ing or shreaking there is in our coun-
try congregations"; and if this was
the case in England we may be sure
it was no better among the pioneers

in America. Here are some of the
crude directions in the "Bay Psalm
Book" : "First, observe how many
note-compass the tune is . . . that
you may begin the tune so that it may
be sung in the compass of your voices,
without squeaking above or grumbling
below." But if those lusty singers
lacked quality, they more than sup-
plied the deficiency in quantity, both
in volume and duration, for the loud-
est singer was the best and the songs
were not inferior, comparatively, in
length to the sermons and prayers.
The singing of the long psalms fre-
quently occupied about half an hour.
Dr. West, who preached in Dart-
mouth, 1726, one Sunday morning
forgot to bring his sermon to church.
He gave out a long psalm, then went
home — a quarter of a mile — and re-
turned with the sermon' before the
singing was finished. As to the metre
of the Psalm Book, it was very little
better than the prose text in the Bible,
in many cases no better at all. The
first verse of the one hundred and
thirty-third psalm was exceptionally
smooth and read as follows :

"How good and sweet to see
it's for bretheren to dwell
together in unitee."

The time was supposed to be set by
the precentor, but practically each "set
the tune" at his own will, and the
loudest voices carried the day. Rev.
Thomas Walter said that he himself
had paused twice to gasp for breath
during the prolongation of a single
note. The awful reverence in which
the singing of the Psalms was held
by the Puritans is shown by the fact
that whenever one of them, even in
road or field, heard the sound of a
psalm tune, he doffed his hat and

174

THE COLONIAL PARSON

bowed his head in the true presence
of God.

The attempt to introduce musical
notes met with such weighty remon-
strances as these: "The old way was
good enough for our fathers." "The
names of the notes are blasphemous."
"To introduce them is popish." "It
is a contrivance to get money." "It
will bring musical instruments into
the churches." "No one could learn
the tunes any way." "If we sing 'by
rule/ the next thing will be to preach
by rule and pray by rule, and then
comes popery." But finally those
who wished to "sing by rule" won the
day and the victory was crowned by
setting apart a special seat for the
leaders and by the establishment of
the New England singing school.
But the musical battle did not end
here. The "lining" or "deaconing"
of the songs was now to be choked
down. This was done gradually by
the choir by starting the line before
the deacon had finished, and crowding
him out more and more, till they gave
him no time. An interesting in-
stance is given of an old soldier dea-
con who was not so easily suppressed.
Being sung down by the choir, he rose
at the conclusion of the psalm and
said calmly: "Now let the people of
the Lord sing."

The maintenance of the parson was
a frequent problem, for although his
income was small, it was none the less
necessary. He was often paid in
kind, and indeed always assisted in
this way, although the cloth had a
general and natural preference for
money. The average stipend was
from 60 to 70 pounds a year. The
minister of Andover church was voted
60 pounds, and "when he shall have

occasion to marry, 10 pounds more."
In one church the deacons were di-
rected to get in every man's sum
either in a "church way" or in a
"Christian way." Just what the
"church way" was in this particular
instance is not stated, but it is certain
that if voluntary contributions did not
appear, then involuntary ones did.
And not only were all the members of
the church "rated," but every one else
in the community as well ; and if they
refused payment, were fined or impris-
oned. In laying out new towns some
of the best lots were set aside for the
use of the minister. All the towns-
men joined in building the church and
the parsonage, mostly furnishing labor
or material instead of money, and any
who refused to contribute were fined.
Pasturage for the minister's horse was
also furnished and was sometimes
abused. For example, in Plymouth,
Rev. Dobbins was requested "not to
have more horses than necessary, for
his many horses that had been pas-
tured on Burial Hill had sadly dam-
aged and defaced the grave stones."
Part of the stipend of a minister on
Cape Cod was two hundred fish yearly
from each parishioner, with which to
fertilize his sandy corn-land. The
men of the parish assisted the parson
in his domestic labors. When his
wheat was ripe they all came together
and harvested it, receiving in return
plenty of good rum to drink. Cord-
wood, also, was always furnished him,
each male church member being ex-
pected to deliver a load at the parson-
age. Sixty loads a year was a fair
allowance, but Rev. Parsons of East
Hadley used eighty, one hundred, and
finally one hundred and twenty loads,
when the parish called a halt and com-

THE COLONIAL PARSON

175

promised with their extravagant shep-
herd by paying him a sum of money
and letting him furnish his own wood.
The minister's loads were expected to
be good hard wood. One parson
asked a contributor if that was not
"pretty soft" wood. The reply was,
"And don't we sometimes have pretty
soft preaching?" It was well that
this was late in the colonial times, for
such repartee a century earlier would
have been severely punished. It was
the custom for the parson to receive
gloves and rings at the time of wed-
dings, christenings and funerals. Rev.
Mr. Elliot, who was ordained pastor
of the New North Church, Boston, in
1742, received in the course of thirty-
two years 2,940 pairs of gloves, and
of these he sold to the amount of $640.
In the earlier days some of .the minis-
ters were unable to have candles and
wrote their sermons by the light of
the wood fire and on scraps of brown
wrapping paper, old envelopes, etc.,
paper being expensive, and then made
the final draft in their sermon books.
These were cramped and crowded,
but legible and distinct.

Some of the parsons near the coast
increased their table supplies by set-
ting nets for fish, like the disciples of
old. Trapping was also very com-
mon among them. We may judge
how many needs a small income could
supply when it is stated that Abijah
Weld, pastor at Attleborough, on a
salary of $220 a year brought up a
family of eleven children, kept a hos-
pitable house and gave liberally to the
poor. A cobbler clergyman at An-
dover, Vermont, worked at his shoe-
mending all the week with his Bible
open on the bench before him, and
marked the page containing any text

which bore on the subject of his com-
ing sermon with a waxed shoe thread.
Often the Bible in his pulpit on Sun-
day had thirty or forty of these shoe
thread guides hanging down from it.
A minister having been reproved for
his worldliness in amassing a large
enough fortune to buy a good farm,
answered his complaining congrega-
tion thus : "I have obtained the
money to buy this farm by neglecting
to follow the maxim to 'mind my own
business.' My business was to study
the word of God and attend to my
parish duties and preach good ser-
mons. All this I acknowledge I have
not done, for I have been meddling
with your business. That was to sup-
port me and my family ; that you have
not done. But remember this; while
I have performed your duties, you
have not done mine, so I think you
cannot complain."

It should not be overlooked that the
use of rum in those days was taken as
a matter of course, even among the
best of parsons. In the account book
of one parson with the storekeeper;
among thirty-nine entries twenty-one
were for rum. And the ministers did
not hesitate to own and operate dis-
tilleries. At harvest gatherings,
church dedications, ordinances, wed-
ding feasts and funerals drink always
abounded. Indeed, the bereaved fam-
ilies were sometimes thrown in debt
for years in consequence of the liquor
which custom forced them to provide
at funerals ! The use of tobacco, on
the other hand, was jealously re-
stricted in New England. It was
placed under the ban as the "devil's
weed," and its use on Sunday or in
public was prohibited by law.

But while drinking in those days

176

A SONG OF LOVE

can hardly be branded as sin, we have
other evidence to show that the par-
sons were human and subject to the
same failings as their fellows. It was
in Virginia and Maryland especially
that they evinced the weaknesses to
which poor fallen man is heir. As a
result of this fact we have the ex-
pression, "Swear like a Maryland
parson." Indeed, "Maryland parson"
became a synonym for all that was
disreputable. We note, too, the dif-
ferent attitude toward the use of to-
bacco in Virginia from that in New
England, which should be expected,
since it was the main product of the
state. Sixteen thousand pounds of
tobacco were given by law for the an-
nual salaries of ministers in Virginia.
The clergy were much more poorly
supported there than in New England
and the religious life was on a much
lower plane. Under Dale's laws,
1611, three absences from church in
succession were punishable by death.
Laws passed there in regard to the
ministers also disclose the grave
abuses to which the profession was

subject. For example, statutes com-
pelled the clergy to preach, which
suggests that they had shirked their
duty in the pulpit; also forbade them
to indulge in excessive drinking
and gambling at dice. Moreover, as
if the vices of the ministry themselves
were not sufficient, their ranks were
occasionally enlarged by wicked im-
postors. One of these preached a
most impressive sermon on the text,
"Let him that stole steal no more,"
while his own pockets were stuffed
with stolen money.

But while the duties and privileges
of the parson were so many, there
were two important ceremonies — wed-
dings and funerals — to one's great
surprise, from which he was excluded
from any active or special part. This
impresses one as very strange, since
these ceremonies are now under the
parson's special charge. But in co-
lonial times no prayers were offered
over the graves of the dead and the
marriage ceremony was performed by
a magistrate. In spite of this he was
an important figure in colonial life.

A Son^ of Love

By Virna Sheard

LOVE reckons not by time — its May days of delight
Are swifter than the falling stars that pass beyond our sight.
Love reckons not by time — its moments of despair
Are years that march like prisoners, who drag the chains they wear.
Love counts not by the sun — it hath no night or day —
'Tis only light when love is near — 'tis dark when love's away.
Love hath no measurements of height, or depth, or space,
And yet within a little grave it oft hath found a place.
Love is its own best law — its wrongs seek no redress;
Love is forgiveness — and it only knoweth how to bless.

The Pine Trees of New England

By Annie O. Huntington

NOT long ago I visited a
region in which there
were no pine trees. The
mountain sides were
covered with a luxuriant growth
of deciduous trees, maples, birches,
and beech trees, and among the
evergreens, were fine old hem-
locks, firs and spruces, but in all
that wooded area there was not even
one solitary pine. It seemed to me
then, more than at any other time,
I realized the distinct individuality
and rare beauty of a pine forest; its
solemn stillness broken only by the
low music of the wind through the
trees, its cool, dark shadows, and
wide-spreading depths of shade, its
sweet-scented floor-covering of
matted needles.

Three stalwart representatives of
the Pine genus are found wild in New
England. Each has a definite type
of beauty, and the minor characteris-
tics are so< strongly marked, that there
is no difficulty in learning to tell the
trees apart.

The white pine (Pinus strobus), is
as characteristic of the woodland land-
scapes of New England as is the
American elm of open valley and vil-
lage roadsides. Among evergreens
it is marked by the same lofty car-
riage, grace and delicacy that dis-
tinguish the American elm among
deciduous trees, but for dignity and
an almost solemn beauty, it stands

alone. The branches often grow in
separate layers one above another up
the tree, and between these parallel
masses of foliage dense shadows ob-

White Pine Cone

scure the trunk. The bark is smooth
on young trees, and a warm, reddish
brown in color, and on old trees it is
less scaly and rough than that of
other pines, with smooth spaces be-
tween the shallow fissures. The deli-
cate, slender needles are found in
whorls of five, a characteristic which
alone might serve to distinguish this
from other native pines. In the
spring, when the needles first unfold
from the buds, and before they have
begun to expand, they decorate the

177

178

PINE TREES OF NEW ENGLAND

Slender Needles in Whorls of Five

tips of the branches like little wax
tapers on a Christmas tree, so slender
and erect are they. The cones are
long, with smooth, loose, thin scales
which protect the small winged seeds,
marvellous packing-cases indeed,
holding within the fragile contents,
promise of innumerable pine trees yet
unborn, a forest in embryo. The
roots of the white pine long remain
sound. Up • among the hills and
mountains of New England, where
new lands have been cleared, we often
see fences made of their bleached,
upturned roots, placed side by side,
with the under surfaces facing out
towards the road. It is said that after
a hundred years these fences show
few signs of decay. I remember one
in New Hampshire, which looks as if
it had weathered the storms of count-
less seasons, and witnessed the pass-

ing of many generations along the
road. At night the seared and sun-
dried roots are an unearthly white in
the moonlight, and they seem to haunt
the roadside, like pale ghosts of a
forgotten forest. The wood of the
white pine is light and soft. It is
well adapted for masts and spars in
ship-building, because it is lighter
and more free from knots than other
wood, and it is much used for
shingles, laths, and interior finish in
the construction of houses. The
demand for it, for these and other pur-
poses, is so great that it threatens
the extinction of our white pine
forests.

The lumbermen call it by different
names, according to its growth and
the appearance of the wood: 'Tump-
kin pine," when it is of old forest
growth, for instance, such as is found
in dense, damp woods. The trunks
are clear with a few branches near the
top, and the wood is a yellow,
"pumpkin" color, free from resin and
with scarcely any sapwood and of
great commercial value. It is more
•scarce in New England than it used to
be, and I consider myself fortunate in
having come unexpectedly upon a
large group of these trees during a
recent afternoon's drive, in southern
New Hampshire. A sudden turn in
the road, at a height some distance
above the damp thicket in which the
pines grew, brought them into bold
relief, and their enormous, towering
trunks, entirely free from lateral
branches, dwarfed, the surrounding
maples and birches into mere shrubs
by contrast. There must have be'en
at least twenty or thirty of these
monarchs, but their doom was sealed,-
and even now three centuries' growth

The White Pine — The most Beautiful of Evergreens

of cell upon cell, may count for no
more than a ship's mast. "Bull sap-
ling" resembles "pumpkin pine," but
the color of the wood is white instead
of yellow. "Sapling pine" is of rapid
growth, and is found standing by it-
self, or among deciduous trees on the
borders of swamps, and woodlands.
The wood is full of knots and resin.

with much sapwood, and it is practi-
cally of no value from a lumberman's
point of view.

In landscape gardening too much
praise cannot be accorded the white
pine. It not only grows noticeably
faster than other evergreens, but it
also outstrips many deciduous trees
ir attaining its growth, and it cheer-

179

180

PINE TREES OF NEW ENGLAND

fully adapts itself to varying kinds of
soil. In recalling memories of differ-
ent individuals seen in surroundings
both natural and artificial, it seems
as though they never fail to harmonize
with the landscape. A white pine
composes well, and taken in numbers
or alone, invariably adds its own
peculiar strength and beauty to the
landscape.

Two instances in particular stand
out in my mind as conspicuous ex-
amples of true art in the treatment
of this tree. One was the work of
Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, and the
other that of Mr. Charles A. Piatt,
and although the conceptions of each
were widely at variance, and their
treatment of the trees showed a
marked contrast, each produced an
impressive and beautiful effect. The
landscape forestry work of Mr. Olm-
sted to which I refer is the approach
to a country-seat on the coast of
Maine, through a forest of old pines.
The entrance of the avenue from the
road is across a curved wooden
bridge, simple in design, but pleasing
in outline and proportion, which spans
the mouth of a river under the cliffs
far below. From this point one
directly enters the woods, which con-
ceal the steep sides of a cove, and
allow only occasional glimpses of the
ledges through the tree trunks. The
avenue follows the angles of this
broken coast line in a series of gentle
curves so naturally and gracefully
beneath the pines, that one is scarcely
conscious that it does curve, until at
length it comes out on the open, cul-
tivated lawn surrounding the house,
where there is a view of the distant
sea. A man with less artistic feeling,
and with less skill in handling a

problem of this kind, would have
marred the beauty of the place by
planning the avenue without reference
to the unusual natural advantages
of the existing trees. On his estate
at Cornish, New Hampshire, Mr.
Piatt has accentuated the solemn
stateliness of a grove of old white
pines by introducing several archi-
tectural features. The grove is on a
plateau with steep banks on two sides,
and commands an extensive view to-
wards the south over undulating hills
to Mt. Ascutney in the distance. A
low, white parapet wall, severe in its
simplicity, adds to the sense of enclo-
sure in the grove, and also serves to
throw the distance still farther off, it
being the object of the artist to con-
trast the straight line of the wall with
the rolling country beyond. At one
end of the grove, where the wall
makes a turn, there is a little faun,
and in the center, beneath the trees,
a large stone table gives a classic
effect of rare dignity and charm.
Thus the white pine lends itself with
equal readiness to natural arrange-
ment or to formal design.

The pitch pine (Pinus rigida) is not
so beautiful as the white nor' so desir-
able for ornamental planting, but it
is rugged and picturesque and it en-
livens many sandy, barren places
throughout New England, with its
cheerful, yellowish-green foliage and
its irregular, spirited outline. The
tree is of medium size, with a more
or less straggling form. Along the
coast, where it is found growing
nearer the sea than any other pine,
its trunk and limbs are tortuous, and
its habit dwarfed ; but in the woods
its trunk is erect, and grows to a
much greater height. The bark is

PINE TREES OF NEW ENGLAND

181

The Pitch Pine, Rugged and Picturesque

182

PINE TREES OF NEW ENGLAND

Three Needles in a Whorl

dark, and very rough, the fissures
deep and uneven, and on old trees
layers of thick scales form masses of
furrowed bark. Its appearance is
utterly unlike the close fitting, evenly
fissured bark of the white pine. An-
other contrast is found in the foliage,
for the needles are longer and coarser
than those of the white, and the spray
is rigid instead of being pliant and
delicate like that of the other. Three
needles, instead of five, are found to-
gether in a whorl ; the cones are
shorter and rounder, and each thick
scale is tipped with a sharp-pointed
prickle. The wood is light, soft,
coarse grained and very durable. It
is used for fuel, charcoal, and occa-
sionally for lumber. It contains large
quantities of resin. When this tree
grows in dense woods, with a clear
trunk, and the wood is free from knots

and has a small amount of resin, the
lumbermen call it "yellow pine" and
use it as a substitute for white.

Back in the country where blue-
berry bushes and scrub oaks grow on
flat, sandy lands near ponds, or where
ponds once used to be, we find in-
domitable pitch pines flourishing
where other trees would quickly die.
The strong, resinous fragrance of the
foliage is apparent here where the di-
rect rays of the hot summer sun are
left, and to zealous berry-pickers, who
come to fill their pails with the
larger, sweeter blueberries found on
these barrens, the scent of the pitch
pine becomes invariably associated
with intense heat and sunshine. Near
the sea, where strong winds and salt
air are too harsh for many trees, the
pitch pine clings with the same un-
yielding tenacity to the rocky soil.
Michaux says that these trees bear
actual contact with salt water, during
the overflow of spring tides, and are
not fatally injured, and G. B. Emer-
son suggests that for this reason pitch

A Prolific Cluster of Pitch Pine Cones

Study of Red Pine Branches

pines might be planted on Cape Cod
and other sandy places which are
now unproductive and wind swept.

The red or Norway pine (Pinus
resinosa), is a magnificent tree with
conspicious boldness of outline and
foliage. It is found in the northern
forests of New England, and is often

seen in striking relief against a back-
ground of distant purple mountains,
the embodiment of strength - and
rugged beauty. The branches are
arranged in distinct whorls, inclining
first downwards, and curving slightly
upwards towards the tips; they are
more regular than those of the pitch

183

184

PINE TREES OF NEW ENGLAND

bling our native species. The bark is
smooth and decidedly reddish-purple
in color, which skives the trunks a
most pleasing effect, particularly in
contrast with the sombre green of the
foliage. The scales of the bark over-
lap each other in thin layers ; they are
far smoother than those of the pitch
pine, nor is the bark broken by
regular fissures like that of the white.
The cones are larger than those of
the pitch and have no bristle points
on the tips of the scales. These red
pine cones form a marked contrast
to the long, slender cones of the white
pine. The wood is light, hard and
close-grained, and is used for masts
and spars in bridge building and for
various purposes in construction. It
is unfortunate that the name of Nor-
way has become associated with this
tree of typical New England origin.
It has, I believe, no connection with
the country of that name in Europe,
but comes, from that of a little town
in Maine where much of it has been
cut. !.. ! !,, [;-j

A list of our native pines would
not be complete without including
the gray, or Northern scrub (Pinus
banksiana), a low straggling tree,

Two Needles in a Whorl

pine. The branchlets are stout, and the
needles are longer than in either of
the others. Two needles are found in
a whorl. They are pliant to the
touch, a characteristic which readily
distinguishes the red from the
Austrian pine, a tree closely resem-

Red Pine Cone

PINE TREES OF NEW ENGLAND

185

found in certain localities in Maine
and Vermont. It is an insignificant
shrub-like tree growing on sandy,
barren soil, and its short needles,
barely an inch long, give it a dwarf-
ish appearance, reminding one of the
impish little pines from Japan.

It is interesting in June to look
for the yellow flowers of the pine trees.
The male and female blossoms are
borne on different shoots of the same
tree, and depend upon the wind for
cross-fertilization. The pollen-bear-
ing flowers are covered with its yellow
dust, and the slightest breeze spreads
it over the branches like powdered
sulphur. The open scales of the
fertile catkins bear a pair of inverted
ovules at the base, and receive it as
it falls, and these catkins afterwards
become the cones filled with seeds.

It is fascinating to listen to the
sound of the wind in the branches
of the pines. Each species has its
own peculiar quality of tone. The
soft, swaying, singing music of the
wind among the fine vibrating
needles of the white pine is like the
delicate intonation of a violin, in con-
trast to the deep, low, resonant bass-
viol accompaniment of the coarse-
needled red pine. Both in winter and
summer there is a delight in listening
to the variations of these aeolian har-
monies, for the trees immediately re-
spond to the most gentle breeze or

Trunk of a Red Pine

the fiercest gale, making a forest of
pine the most melodious in the world.

Jane and Mary Findlater, Sister
Novelists

By Nora Archibald Smith

IT was in the lingering twilight of
the Highlands, in a walled gar-
den gay with poppies, a lave-
rock singing far above me in
the lift, that I laid down "The Green
Graves of Balgowrie" with wet eyes
and an ache in the throat.

"Ah, Life, there are stranger
things in you than were ever writ-
ten," sighs the author in her opening
phrases, but surely none stranger
and more piteous than the brief, ill-
starred existence of Lucie and Henri-
etta Marjorybanks in the old house of
Balgowrie.

The recurrent gs and rolling rs of
the title with the accent on the soft
penultimate sang like a line of poetry
in my head all night, and in the
morning served as a magic phrase to
draw me back to the red volume. I
read it through again, held by the
vivid style, the skill in character-
drawing that brings the persons of
the story before us, clear as old por-
traits in a gallery, and by the extraor-
dinary power of vision which the
writer possesses, — a gift which makes
it seem as if she were looking
through a window into the lives and
innermost hearts of her heroes and
heroines and turning eagerly to re-
port to us what she sees there.

The world knew very little then of
Miss Jane Findlater, for "The Green
186

Graves of Balgowrie" was her first
book ; it had not yet been privileged
to learn that she has a sister as gifted
as herself, though at least one of her
readers had guessed that she could
have painted no such picture of pas-
sionate sisterly affection had a dear
"other self" not been living some-
where on this planet. "There was, as
it were, one heart between them,"
says Miss Findlater in speaking of
Mrs. Marjorybanks's daughters, "As
you may sometimes see two branches
of a tree almost grown together by
continued pressure one upon the
other, so these characters, that started
on their journey so far apart, had
been welded into one by their de-
pendence on each other."

We were thinking of these words
when we set forth from "Edinbruch"
one May afternoon a year ago, to
visit the "twa sisters" in their
"bower." Sisters we, sisters they,
how could we fail to comprehend one
another? We were bidden to the
Findlaters' seaside cottage at Cock-
enzie, East Lothian, and were to
leave the train at historic Prestonpans
where Prince Charlie won the victory

in '45-

A strong sea breeze was blowing as
we left the station and the Forth
shimmered blue beyond us. As we
drove through the green lanes, fruit

V 1

Jane H. Findlater

trees hung white with blossom on
either side, and here and there rosy
children were tumbling in the new
grass where the little pink daisies
were dotted. On the one side all was
bright with youth and springtime, on
the other gloomed a dark castle tower
black with age and memories, its
stones falling in crumbling heaps
about its foot and the rooks darting
in and out of its narrow window-slits.
We thought of Betty Musgrave's
lovely tower in the north, the tower
for which she longed so passionately
in the din and turmoil of London
streets, and wondered if this one in
East Lothian had served Mary Find-
later as a figure-head around which to
weave, in absence, her homesick fan-
cies.

Now the road passed close to the
yellow sands where fishermen were
spreading their nets and in a moment
we had reached the cottage at

Mary W. Findlater

Cockenzie, its shining windows gay
with wall-flowers. Two slender,
charming brunette girls came running
out to meet us and we were ushered
into the pretty room where by the
bright fire sat their mother knitting,
a sweet tranquil figure in her white
shawl, her widow's cap and the bit of
work in her delicate hands. It was a
delightful afternoon, for Scotswomen
are like their brothers, all cordiality
and frankness and unreserve when
once they have let you pass the bar-
riers that guard their hearts. Over
our teacups we sat and chatted and
wished the sun might have stood still
to give us time for longer converse,
for topics of common interest are not
lacking when four women, all of the
same craft, are gathered together.
We learned then of the methods of
work of these sister novelists and
found that they are very busy persons
and like housewives of the olden days

187

188

THE FINDLATERS, NOVELISTS

devote their mornings to needlework
and to cookery of the more delicate
sort, that which it is said needs a
lady's touch to make it perfect. With
these duties and attendance upon
their mother, who is something of an
invalid, they rarely write more than
an hour or two a day, and after tea
station themselves with their papers
on either side of the great dining
table. The fact, as they say them-
selves, that they are 'Twined together
like the strands of a rope" is evident
enough here, for there are few of us
who scribble, even on the dullest and
most prosaic of topics, who could ac-
complish anything under such condi-
tions, face to face with another
scratching pen, another rustle of
draperies and flutter of leaves.

From this afternoon and another
meeting like it, and from talks with
Scottish friends and admirers of these
gifted girls have come most of the
notes gathered for this article, though
they have been largely and pictur-
esquely added to by frequent letters
from the authors themselves, each
one sealed with its thistle, the words
"Dinna forget!" stamped above it.

Their father, Eric John Findlater,
a minister of the Church of Scotland,
came from Sutherland and was of
purely Celtic stock, all of his ances-
tors having been scholarly men,
preachers but not writers. Their
mother was one of the Borthwicks, a
Lowland Scots family, and an aunt oi
theirs is well remembered in Edin-
burgh society as "a fascinating crea-
ture who sang Gaelic songs and wrote
verses." She was called by Professor
Blackie "the Charlotte Brcnte of the
North" and evidently had consider-
able literary and poetic faculty, for

with Mrs. Findlater she collected and
translated a number of religious
poems entitled "Hymns from the
Land of Luther." Many of these are
their version of Schmolk's "My Jesus !
phrased with much grace and feeling,
as Thou wilt," being the one com-
monly used in our churches.

Jane Findlater was born in Edin-
burgh, Mary at Lochearnhead in
Perthshire, and they were brought up
at the manse in the latter place, be-
ing educated entirely at home and
leaving Lochearnhead only upon the
death of their father when they were
aged respectively twenty and twenty-
two years. Since then they have lived
most of the time at Harlaw Hill,
Prestonpans, and there the greater
part of their writing has been done.
From childhood upward both girls
were filled with the desire for expres-
sion in some form, but they thought
in the beginning, it appears, that
painting was their metier, until, as
they humorously confess, a little hu-
miliating study convinced them to the
contrary.

Then they began to write, at first
partly for amusement, afterwards
with more steady purpose, the maw of
the kitchen fire being crammed with
most of the earlier efforts. Jane
seems to have led the way in these
literary flights, the first story she pub-
lished being called "An Indigent
Gentlewoman," and included in a col-
lection written with a friend, appear-
ing in Fisher Unwin's Pseudonym
Series under the name of "The Hon.
Stanbury."

Next with great pains and care a
long novel was written, which failing
to find a publisher, still reposes in a
desk drawer, — that tomb of neglected

Harlaw Hill, Prestonpans

and unappreciated manuscripts. "The
Green Graves of Balgowrie," which
we may thus see was by no means a
maiden effort, won immediate accept-
ance and was published in 1896, Mary
Findlater issuing a volume of poems,
"Sonnets and Songs," about the same
time.

In 1897 the elder author gave us
her remarkable story, "A Daughter
of Strife," the younger her first ro-
mance, "Over the Hills" ; two years
later two novels again appeared al-
most at the same time, "Rachel"
(Jane H. Findlater, 1899), and "Betty
Musgrave" (Mary W. Findlater,
1899), and the latter author has just
published a third story, "The Narrow
Way," so that in number of volumes
the two sisters now stand equal.

This comprises their v published
work up to this time, though they

have also written occasional sketches
and essays on political and literary
subjects and are planning a volume of
short stories soon to be issued under
their joint names.

The lives of these two remarkable
girls have been comparatively un-
eventful and the details of them so
identical that what serves for the one
would serve equally well for the other.
Most of their days have been passed
in quiet and retirement and they have
travelled little save in the realm of
the imagination, where it is easy to
see they have been constant visitors.
One of them speaks somewhere o*
the delicious imaginative games of
lonely children; Henrietta Marjory-
banks charms the long hours of the
night when Lucie is wakeful with her
"wonderful imaginings," and the same
Henrietta always "keeps the blithest

189

190

THE FINDLATERS, NOVELISTS

company when she is alone
and sometimes breaks into little
trills of laughter over her own
fancies."

Given the Scottish intensity and
sternness, an inheritance, partly
Celtic, of insight and spirituality, a
tendency handed down from a long
line of ancestors who have wrestled
with the world, to look at sin squarely
and grimly in the face and to do bat-
tle with it, — given all these things,
and one cannot wonder that the sister
authors commonly see the tragic side
of life and have little to do with the
conventional, or with the "things of
parlordo.m" as they characterize
them. Possessed of strong individu-
ality, they have not rubbed it off by
overmuch contact with ordinary
things and people. In a back water
of the river of present-day existence
they have yet been close enough to
the stream to hear the rush of waves
and close enough to see the boats
come floating down, — this, straight
with the current, that, broadside on;
sure-guided here, tossing helpless
there ; one sinking, another shooting
to its goal sped by the winds of des-
tiny.

Are they realists, or romanticists?
One can scarcely say; for though the
books are not realistic in the sense of
being photographic, they yet have a
grim, Balzac-like fidelity to nature in
the drawing of character, and on the
other hand they bear one on with all
the rush and power and passionate in-
tensity of a pure romance.

Both sisters have the gift not only
of clearly seeing their own creations
but of reproducing them in words as
clear. The books are etchings; the
authors use the etcher's needle to

"ramble on copper,
on its point
To catch what in the artist-poet's mind
Reality and fancy did create."
It is not altogether because they are
sisters that they remind one of the
Brontes : there is a certain resem-
blance also in the power and passion
of style, in the way the books catch
and hold and sweep one on and in the
people they depict, sometimes repul-
sive, sometimes majestic, but always
real to their finger-tips, actual, virile,
more alive than many of the flesh and
blood creations we meet in life's daily
walk. It is the Celtic fire and energy,
the Celtic dreaminess and melancholy
commingled, that weave the spell of
all these books, — those of the Find-
laters as those of the Brontes. "We
shall never build a Parthenon," said
Renan of his own Celtic-Breton race.
"Marble is not for us, but we know
how to grip the heart and soul."

Were we to differentiate between
the two sister novelists, so much alike
in many ways, we might say perhaps
that Jane Findlater possesses the
more smoothly flowing style, the
more purely romantic touch, the
higher spiritual reach, while Mary
has the greater power of character -
drawing and the greater dramatic in-
tensity.

One might state quite confidently
that a more convincing picture of dip-
somania in all its sordid details, in all
its repellent outlines, has never been
painted than that which the latter
author gives us in Betty Musgrave's
lady-mother. The vulgar, kindly
lodging-house keeper in the same
book is also a fine piece of work and
for real depravity of nature, for ab-
sence of moral sense, for absolute
selfishness, cowardice, and blackness

THE FINDLATERS, NOVELISTS

191

of heart under a fair exterior, we may
commend ourselves to Annie Fraser
in "Over the Hills." A simpler,
clearer scene, telling with fewer
words of the girl's complete heart-
lessness and selfishness could hardly
be written than that in which Lord
Glarn in Annie's absence finds the
dead bird in its cage, its seed-cups
empty of food and water and the old
blind uncle alone, tossing on his sick-
bed, his medicine out of reach, the
food by his side soured in the hot air-
less room.

To turn to Dinah Jerningham in
"Over the Hills" after contemplating
Annie Fraser is to be transported to
an Alpine lake from the bottom of a
frog-pond. When she tells her lover
that she will remember him "Every
hour of the day; every hour of the night;
wherever I am — in my dreams — in my
grave even, if I am there before you."
we feel with a1 thrill the passion and
power of the woman and are prepared
for that most romantic ending when
she leaves the world behind her for
the man of her choice.

Another love-story, stormy and piti-
ful, is "Rachel," by Jane Findlater,
and yet the main purpose of the book
is not the master passion, but the de-
lineation of the mind and soul of
Michael Fletcher, "a Puritan Jove
with his curling locks and his ma-
jestic manner," "a harp that gave
music because the wind passed
through it." Believed to be in some
sort a portrait of the gifted Edward
Irving, as the sect of Foreseers is
said to have been suggested by the
Catholic Apostolic Church, the love
episode by Irving's passion for Jane
Welch (afterwards Mrs. * Carlyle) ,

yet these historic figures, if indeed
they occurred to the writer at all,
were merely used by her as fulcrums
on which to rest her lever. Herself
enough of a mystic, possessed of suf-
ficient spiritual insight to appreciate
the character with which she dealt,
she has given us a striking portraiture
of a man of mighty gifts, of exalted
powers, breathed upon as were the
prophets of old, "speaking as the
mouthpiece of another," and yet led
astray by the wiles of his own popu-
larity. "It takes a great deal of grace
to be a failure," says the old minister
in "Rachel," "but it probably takes
more to be a success — terrible tests
both of the manhood of men."

We may not close even a brief re-
view of the work of these brilliant
young Scotswomen without some
mention of "A Daughter of Strife,"
also by Jane Findlater. It is a story
of singular dramatic force, pro-
nounced by several critics to be the
best of her work, and from the open-
ing scene, wherein the lovely heroine,
weaving rushes in her garret, first
casts her spell upon us, to the last
word of the last page, it throbs with
passion and is dark with the mysteries
of Fate. In this novel, as in all the
others, one seems to hear distinct and
clear —

"... the Parcae reel
The threads of man at their humming

wheel,
The threads of life, and power, and pain,
So sweet and mournful falls the strain."

Mournful? Yes, and more than
mournful; tragic.

" Tt's a tale of life,' said the gray-
headed gentleman, 'and life is made
up of such sorrows.' ':

Polly Stevens' Calf s Skin

By Mary McHenry

FROM His Majesty's Colony of
Connecticut to the new settle-
ment in the much-praised Val-
ley of Wyoming was a long,
wearisome journey for a lame calf to
make. Pretty Polly Stevens regarded
her pet anxiously as she led it forth
from the deserted stable and down the
village street to the public square
where the little company was gather-
ing in readiness for the start into the
wilderness. Many of the young peo-
ple smiled upon seeing the maiden and
her calf, but the elder and more sober
Puritans frowned. It was a foolish
and wicked indulgence on the part of
Uriah Stevens to yield to his daugh-
ter's importunities and allow her to
add a crippled animal to the already
burdened train of the emigrants.

Polly was happily impervious alike
to smiles and frowns. She had saved
Spotty from the butcher's block. "The
sweet and tender grass of those wide
meadows whereof Master Dywer
spoke will be of great benefit to the
calf, and the sight of her will be a
solace where all will be strange and
new," she asserted to her young sister,
Cynthia, and Cynthia cordially agreed.
It was a grave undertaking to leave
homes and friends and the well or-
dered safety of Connecticut towns for
the dangers and hardships of the
frontier. The band of New England
men and women to the number of one
hundred, bearing their household
goods and driving their stock before
192

them, followed the trail that led down
through the Minnisink region, on
across high mountains and through
dense forests to the distant Susque-
hanna where the hardy and persistent
Connecticut people had been strug-
gling for several years to maintain a
position and establish permanent set-
tlements. Progress during the jour-
ney was necessarily slow. The
weather was pleasant, game was
plentiful and little danger from the
Indians was apprehended; neverthe-
less the expedition was attended by
daily perils and excitement. It was on
the third day that Polly Stevens was
bereaved of her calf.

A wide and rapid stream, swollen
bank full by spring freshets, had to be
forded. The lame calf, unable to
swim with the other animals, was
taken up on a rudely constructed raft
that carried the baggage and the
women. In midstream there was a
sudden lurch. The timid, awkward
calf went sprawling into the water and
Polly, who held to the halter by which
she led her pet, was jerked suddenly
overboard. The current was swift.
Before her friends recovered from
their consternation the maiden might
have been whirled beyond help had not
a young man leaped out from the
farther shore and swqm with strong
strokes to the rescue.

When she had been lifted to the
bank, Polly gazed about wildly.
"Spotty! Spotty!" she ejaculated

POLLY STEVENS' CALF'S SKIN

193

Then she turned to the strong swim-
mer appealingly. "Save her! Oh,
save her, too !" she cried.

The young man stared at the maid-
en for a moment, then wheeled with a
short laugh and ran swiftly along the
bank toward the spot where the red
and white body of the calf had come
up for the second time in the seething,
yellow water. The New England men
shouted warnings against the peril-
ous attempt, but the young man paid
no heed. It was a hard struggle.
When the animal was finally hauled
ashore the rescuer sank exhausted on
the bank. And the calf was drowned
after all.

With a protecting circle of dames
and a thick clump of hemlock for a
dressing room, Polly was helped into
dry garments and properly chided
meanwhile. It was bad enough, her
mother declared, that she should fool-
ishly fall into the water to the sad det-
riment of her new quilted petticoat,
but it was worse that she should be so
wanting in thought, so unmaidenly
forward and troublesome as to re-
quest a stranger to risk his life for a
worthless animal that was better
drowned and out of the way. Under
maternal conduct a depressed and
shamefaced Polly approached her res-
cuer. With painful blushes and with
her gaze upon the hem of her bor-
rowed petticoat, she murmured her
thanks for the stranger's good ser-
vices and her apologies for her pre-
sumption in having required such. For
one infinitesimal fraction of a second
her eyelids were lifted, and her deep
gloom was lightened to perceive that
the dripping young giant quite
equalled her in a display of 'embarrass-
ment.

The young man was one of six trav-
ellers, father and five sons, who had
joined the Connecticut party that
morning. John McNeil and his sons
were bound for the unbroken and al-
most unknown wilderness of the re-
gion west of the Susquehanna. The
elder McNeil was known to many of-
the Connecticut men by reputation as
a famous hunter, trapper and fur
trader from along the Hudson. Since
their route was the same and compan-
ionship a pleasant novelty, the adven-
turous Irishmen slackened their pace
to linger a day and a night in com-
pany with the New England emi-
grants. Beside the big camp fire at
night Polly Stevens found courage to
glance more than once at the strong
swimmer who had hair like the breast
of a crow and eyes like a flash of blue
flame when the fire begins to burn.
And always as she looked she was cu-
riously startled to find those brilliant
blue eyes turned in her direction. Af-
ter the strangers passed on their way
Polly found the loss of her pet calf
weighing heavily upon her. Not dur-
ing the remainder of the journey did
she regain interest in her surround-
ings.

At the settlement in the wide, beau-
tiful valley of the gleaming river all
was confusion and excitement. The
settlers flocked out to welcome the
newcomers, and old friends and ac-
quaintances crowded about with eager
greetings and questionings. Amid the
bustle Polly Stevens did not experi-
ence surprise at being quietly accosted
by the stalwart young man who had
passed them on the way, pausing only
long enough to save her from drown-
ing. Now he seemed an old acquaint-
ance. They greeted each other as

194

POLLY STEVENS' CALF'S SKIN

such and stood apart exchanging im-
pressions concerning the fair prospect
of the settlement. It was a time of
peace and prosperity in the valley, a
lull between the struggles with Penn's
proprietory government and the
outbreak of the Indian depredations
that changed the name from Wyo-
ming the Beautiful to Wyoming the
Bloody.

"I am not denying that 'tis a pleas-
ant place and inviting. But 'tis a fact
that the best land is already taken up,"
the young man said. "Farther west
the country is as lovely to behold and
the soil is even richer. There a man
can take what pleaseth him, and there
will not be the annoyance of overmuch
government. Therefore do we seek
the newer regions."

"Then you do not remain here?"
Polly's sun suddenly went under a
cloud.

"Nay," the young man replied.
"Dad and the boys have gone on. I
waited here for your party to arrive
because I wanted to give you this. It
is the calf's skin," he added as he un-
rolled a bundle and showed the famil-
iar red and white coat of the lamented
Spotty.

"I went back and skinned her, then
while I waited here I dressed the
skin," he explained.

Polly gave a little cry of delight.
"Oh, my poor Spotty! Oh, are you
going to give it to me?"

The young man turned the pelt.
Two sets of initials had been burned
upon the inner side with flourishes
and delicate tracery, right cleverly
done. "T. S.' and 'D. McN.'; Tolly
Stevens' and 'Deemer McNeil' " he
pointed out. "I put them there to-
gether because I desire that you

should keep a remembrance of me,
Polly Stevens."

There was meaning in his tone,
Polly said nothing. What could she
say? She stood blushing and trem-
bling and clasping the calf's skin
tightly. Deemer McNeil took cour-
age (if he needed it) from her down-
cast face. "I am coming back," he
said. "When next spring comes and
we have the cabin built, Dad and the
boys will go to New York after the
women folks. But I am coming here
after you, Polly Stevens. Sure as the
breath stays in my body, that is what
I am going to do- Will you wait for
me? Just one year, dear heart, will
you wait?"

Polly's mother was calling sharply,
but Polly heard only the deep, soft
voice with the persuasive touch of
brogue that repeated so coaxingly,
"Will you, Polly a chara, will you?"

Flow she came to do it, Polly never
quite knew, but suddenly she raised
her eyes, brave and clear : "Yes, I
will," she answered him.

Who can understand the heart of a
maiden? After the words had been
spoken and the man had departed,
Polly held her breath with fear and
hid her burning face in her pillow and
was ready to die of shame for her
boldness in thus raising her eyes and
- thus answering one who addressed her
in so strange and compelling a fash-
ion. But she never really wished to
recall the promise she gave the stran-
ger; not even when her hand was
sought in marriage by Peleg Apple,
son of a Hartford magistrate and
owner of the fertile half-section ad-
joining her father's, nor when pros-
perous John Hollingworth, the first
storekeeper in the valley, came a-woo-

POLLY STEVENS' CALF'S SKIN

195

ing, as did also the widower, Guy
Brion, a man of learning and piety,
nor yet when the suitor was Ezra Par-
ker, the well favored young hunter
who was her second cousin.

Her mother thought it perverse and
wrong that where so many God-fear-
ing, sober, well-to-do young men
needed wives the maiden should stay
unwed; but her father said, "Let her
bide her time. I will not have her har-
ried."

So Polly waited. One. evening when
there was a faint feather of new foli-
age on the trees, and the warm, moist
air was sweet with the breath of blos-
soms and the first whip-poor-will was
calling, she went to the pasture lot
with her sister, Cynthia, to milk the
cows. "It is a year; it is just a year,"
she said, looking off toward the forest.

Even as she spoke a young man
crashed through the brush and leaped
forth from the woods and stood before
her.

Polly Stevens' parents sternly dis-
approved of the Irish hunter. Being
prudent and thrifty they did not desire
a son-in-law who could offer only his
strength and agility, his skill with a
rifle and a sixth share in a rude clear-
ing far beyond the edge of civilization.
They threatened to send their
daughter away. A missionary to the
Indians, passing through the settle-
ment, had described a school for girls
kept by the Moravian Sisters at Beth-
lehem on the Lehigh.

At the trysting place on the little
bridge in the pasture lot Deemer Mc-
Neil laughed in scorn. "And do they
think they can send you where I can-
not go? Indeed, and it would not be
the first time a McNeil stole his bride
from a convent."

Then he squared his broad shoul-
ders and walked straightway to the
house and spoke out manfully to
Uriah Stevens himself. The Rever-
end Broadhead Johnston, a beloved
and highly esteemed clergyman who
had but recently arrived in the settle-
ment from Connecticut, sat unper-
ceived in a corner- Hearing Deemer's
appeal, the preacher was moved to
speak in his favor : "The young man
seemeth honest and courageous ; two
sterling qualities, Brother Stevens.
When the hearts of virtuous young
persons lead toward the true mating,
'tis not to the honor and glory of God
that the parents should interpose."

So, with the reluctant blessing of
her parents Polly Stevens wedded
Deemer McNeil and went off to the
rude clearing beyond the edge of civi-
lization.

There were hardships and priva-
tions, even dangers to be encountered
in the new home, but it is Love that
builds the Palace Beautiful and
spreads the couch of roses. For six
months there was unbroken happiness,
then Polly's husband with his father
and his brothers went off to join Gen-
eral Washington's army. "You must
go, Deemer. I would not have you
stay," Polly said.

For a year the Indians had been
quiet along the West Branch, but no
one knew when that quiet might be
hideously broken. It was a strange
madness that left the women and chil-
dren of the frontier at the mercy of
the savages while the men were fight-
ing the British. Polly closed her own
house and went to live with her
mother-in-law along the river where
three or four houses stood together
within a rude stockade.

196

POLLY STEVENS' CALF'S SKIN

The winter passed in safety. With
the opening of spring a blight of dread
and terror fell over the unprotected
settlements. There were rumors of a
general Indian uprising and news of
murders and massacres near at hand.
Many settlers fled down the river,
hoping to find safety in the fort at
Sunbury. The McNeils did not flee.
There was a bedridden grandfather
who could not be moved. They made
such preparations for defence as they
could, the women and the boys and the
old men, and then they waited.

Early one morning it came. Doors
and windows had beeen thrown open
to admit the bright sunlight, the fresh
pure air. Suddenly the sunlight was
darkened by forms of naked, leaping
savages, the air was filled with shrieks
of terror and death agony. Before
the outbreak Polly had been giving the
old grandfather his breakfast. She
slipped her fingers within the bony,
yellow hand on the patchwork quilt
and remained in her seat in the corner
beside the high bed. Those two,
silent, frozen with terror, saw it all —
saw the other inmates of the cabin
dragged forth and cruelly butchered,
saw through the open door the inex-
pressible horrors of the torture stake,
saw their neighbors' houses in flames,
heard the crackling and roaring of
the fire that was destroying the roof
over their heads, and the walls about
them, knew at last that in all the settle-
ment they were the only ones left to
suffer.

Then the paralytic who had not
spoken for a twelvemonth, turned
his hollow, glittering eyes. "Now, in
pity, kill me, daughter," he said.

In the deep, hoarse voice that she
had never before heard there was

such command, such entreaty that
Polly reached with unshaking hand
for the long barreled pistol her hus-
band had given her. The muzzle
was against the gaunt temple when
part of the burning roof crashed in,
a heavy beam across the head of the
bed. Still unscathed, Polly walked
out from amid the smoke and flame
and stepped across the body of a
woman she had loved in the path that
was slippery with blood. An Indian
sprang forward with uplifted toma-
hawk, but Polly looked at him with
wide, unseeing eyes and laughed
shrilly. "Kill, kill; now in pity, kill,"
she chanted. Because of that look
and that laugh, the brave's arm fell
to his side. Out of superstitious
reverence for the demented, the In-
dians forbore to harm the woman.
When they returned through the forest
they led her with them. Polly never
remembered anything of that march.
Why or when she picked it up no
one knows, but when she went into
the woods with her captors she carried
with her the red and white calfskin
that Deemer had dressed for her, and
throughout her captivity she clung to
the skin and took care of it.

Late in the summer a party of
Tuscaroras Indians came to a trading
post on the shores- of Lake Erie with
a prisoner, a white woman, whom they
offered to exchange for certain stores
of rum and calico. The traders pur-
chased the woman's release. When
she was brought into their camp one
of their number sprang to his feet
with a loud cry. The young hunter
from Wyoming, Ezra Parker, recog-
nized in the wretched captive his
cousin, pretty Polly Stevens. Polly
looked at him with wide, unseeing

POLLY STEVENS' CALF'S SKIN

197

eyes. "Kill, kill," she whimpered.
And the rough traders, seeing her
pitiable condition, turned away their
heads and swore great oaths of venge-
ance upon the redskins.

Ezra Parker conducted his cousin
to Wyoming and her parents received
her with great tenderness and rejoiced
and wept and prayed over her. But
she did not recognize them and could
give no rational answer to their
questioning. Throughout the winter
Polly dwelt in her old home, gentle
and uncomplaining, but ever with the
vacant, absent look in her eyes. With
the approach of spring she showed
signs of returning memory. Every
evening at milking time she would
go down to the little bridge at the
edge of the pasture and wait there
until darkness fell, looking off into
the woods expectantly. One night in
May, Cynthia in bed beside her afflicted
sister, was awakened by Polly's hand
on her shoulder : "Cynthia, dear heart,
Deemer is down at the door. Hasten
to get up and light the candle that I
may find my gray cloak. I must not
keep him waiting."

It was the first time Polly had
spoken her husband's name since her
return. "Nay, Deemer is not at the
door, sweet sister. Deemer was slain
by the Indians," said Cynthia, for no
one in Wyoming knew that Deemer
McNeil was away in the army at the
time of the massacre.

"He is down there. He does not
knock, fearing I may not be here,"
Polly insisted. The light of the candle
showed her face white, her eyes bright
with joy and meaning. Trembling
with anxiety, Cynthia followed down
the narrow stairs. A flood of moon-
light entered as the door was opened.

And it was true that a man stood there,
a man who fell upon his knees with a
great cry, clasping Polly and hiding
his face against her with hoarse sobs
and strange, uncouth sounds that
Cynthia turned faint with sympathetic
emotion to hear.

When Uriah Stevens and his wife
came forth from their bedroom they
found Polly in the arms of her hus-
band, sobbing and weeping tempes-
tuously while Deemer strove to com-
fort and quiet her. "Nay, let her cry it
out," said Uriah Stevens. "These be
the first tears that have come to her
relief, and with God's grace they may
clear away the cloud that has darkened
her reason."

Then Polly raised her streaming
face and said, "Father!" and they
knew the full powers of her mind had
come back to her.

Not until later did they permit Polly
to recall the tragic events that had for
a time overthrown her reason. But
as they all sat together in the candle
light for the rest of the night, Deemer
McNeil told how after a hard cam-
paign and much fighting, he had re-
turned to conduct his family to a place
of safety ; and how in the place where
his home had stood he had found only
heaps of blackened ruins. Believing
that his wife with all the others had
met death at the hands of the Indians,
he made a vow of vengeance. With
rage and despair in his heart he
plunged into the wilderness, the only
desire left him being that of wreaking
as heavy a punishment upon the red-
skins as he might, and so doing to
meet death himself. For every slain
Indian he made a notch on the stock of
his gun. There were twenty-seven
such notches.

198

STORY OF MAZZEI

He told how his wandering led him
to the Wyoming region where he was
seized by a longing to see once more
a spot sacred to the memory of one
whom he deemed lost. Shunning the
sight of his fellows and intending
after that night never again to visit
a clearing, he sought the trysting
place in the pasture where he had so
often met Polly Stevens. Standing
there in the moonlight he saw
spread out on the little bridge
the well known spotted calf's skin
that his bride had carried with
her to their home in the wilder-
ness and had placed on the back
of the little hickory rocking-chair he
made for her. The sight of the skin
in that place gave him wild, new hope.
Shaking with eagerness, he leaped
the fence and ran to the house. But

there his courage failed. Dreading
an adverse answer he waited long,
not daring to knock or call. Deemer
looked down at the wife against his
breast, safe in his strong arms. "And
so, Polly, a thaisge, it was your calf's
skin that led me to find you, that
with God's great mercy," he added.

Uriah Stevens arose and opened
the door. The pink glory of the dawn
and the fresh gladness of renewed life
rushed in. "Let us pray," said the
old man solemnly.

And that is the reason there re-
mains to this day in the attic of a
Pennsylvania homestead, in the big
cedar trunk, wrapped in a length of
linen of Polly Stevens' own weaving,
a worn, moth-eaten calf's skin with
the initials "P. S." and "D. McN.';
showing faintly thereon.

Story of Mazzei

By Helen Zimmern

THERE is a strange old
Italian book, long out of
print, which bears the date,
Lugano, 1845, and has for
its title, "Recollections of the Life and
Peregrinations of the Florentine Filip-
po Mazzei, with Historical Documents
on his Political Mission as Agent of
the United States and of King Stanis-
laus of Poland." The book shows
neither publisher's nor editor's name,
the historical documents referred to in
the title are most of them wanting, but
there are printed in an appendix a
number of most interesting letters.
Its rambling disjointed pages are

merely preceded by a letter addressed
to a "dear, loved, and esteemed
friend," who is not named. Indeed
the whole book seems little else but a
long discursive letter to this friend.
The one by way of preface is dated
Pisa, August 12th, 1810:

"You have asked, more than once, for the
history of my life, and I have always point-
ed out to you that besides its being an ar-
duous undertaking for one who is nearer 80
than 70 years old, materials are want-
ing for the most interesting period, that
namely between 1770 and the middle of 1772,
to give you an account of my conduct, first
in the state of Virginia as a good citizen
of my adopted country, then as agent for

STORY OF MAZZEI

199

the said state in Europe, afterwards as
agent for King Stanislaus of Poland, then
as Charge a" Affaires of the King and the
Republic — because the first were left be-
hind in Virginia in 1785 (with the inten-
tion of returning within the year) and the
second in Warsaw in July, 1792. You nev-
ertheless persisted, and I will give them to
you, but I warn you that certain and pre-
cise memoirs of my life consist of little
more than the insolence of infancy, the ir-
regularities and strangeness of youth, and
some weaknesses of old age. Meanwhile I
send your own note, written 1809, in order
that you may say, every time you find them
before you, 'Mea culpa.' I send also my
manuscript on the great rivers of Virginia,
which was the cause of your writing the
note."

It will be seen from the above that
a lucid style was not one of our re-
spectable envoy's specialties.

And the subject of the memoirs is
as enigmatical as his style is tortuous.'
In vain have we searched for a refer-
ence to him in biographical diction-
aries and in works referring to the
times of which he writes ; although
he speaks of himself, and apparently
with truth, as having been on intimate
terms with many well known people
both in Europe and America, such as
Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, and Sir
Horace Mann (Horace Walpole's
friend). All we can learn about him
then we must cull from his own pages.
From these it appears that Filippo
Mazzei was born on Christmas day,
1730, at Poggio a Cajano, a little ham-
let near Florence, familiar to mod-
ern visitors as the site of a beautiful
Medici Villa in which lived Bianca
Capello, the reputed witch-wife of a
Duke de Medici, and whence Cather-
ine of the same family departed from
her own folk for France to marry
King Henry II. Where he died we do
not learn, but apparently, either at

Lucca or Pisa. He was the last of his
family, which, when he was born, con-
sisted of his grandparents, his father
and mother, an aunt, an elder brother,
Jacopo, the villain of the family, ami
another, Giuseppe, who became a Ca-
pucin monk, much to the grief of Fi-
lippo, who loved him. After the eco-
nomical Italian custom, prevailing to
this day, these and other members of
the Mazzei family all lived together
in a big house of their own. The
grandfather, who was the Cappoccio
(family chief), was the undisputed
master of them all. He appears to
have been well off. The aunt "kept
the keys." Filippo's father was a deal-
er in timber, on his own account. Fi-
lippo tells us that his grandfather was
very fond of him, and would have left
him the whole of his property if the
boy (then between eight and nine)
had not himself dissuaded him. He
loved his father and mother too well
to allow it, he says. Mazzei's edu-
cation seems to have been any-
thing but systematic, as the family
finances steadily declined. He was
obliged to change his school, and
never for the better. At last he
went to study medicine in Flor-
ence, where his father, coming
up to nurse him when ill of a
fever, caught the disease himself and
died when the boy was about nine-
teen. Thus Jacopo (the grandfather
having died before) became the head
of the family, and on pretence of debts,
of which Filippo had never heard,
mulcted him of more than half of his
inheritance. Filippo asked for a divi-
sion of the property, then an unusual
proceeding. The portion which he re-
ceived was only four hundred scudi,
fifty being payable down, and the rest

200

STORY OF MAZZEI

in seven years. The document by
which he agreed to this arrangement
he calls his "certificate of poverty."
After obtaining his diploma, and af-
ter leading during his student years,
despite his poverty, a life of a rather
Gil Bias character, he went to Leg-
horn, where he met with a Jewish phy-
sician named Salinas, who was, he
says, "much valued among Christians
as well as Jews." As this gentleman's
assistant, he set out for Smyrna by way
of Hungary, Austria and Constanti-
nople. Of this journey he gives an
amusing and interesting account. The
two friends seem to have succeeded
well in their business at Smyrna, and
it is not told why he threw up the
work and set out for England. Evi-
dently he was a restless spirit, born to
wander. In a note to one of the chap-
ters of his Smyrna life, he first men-
tions Virginia, when telling the story
of an old woman who applied to him
to be cured of a chronic disease.
"Jefferson had told me," he says, "that
in America uneducated persons be-
lieved that Europeans knew every-
thing, even the unknowable."

He left Smyrna in December, 1755,
in a vessel carrying what he calls a
"patente de Corsaro," in view of a
possible war between England and
France, reaching London March
2, 1756. Directly after their ar-
rival, the whole crew was captured
by the press-gang. Mazzei after
some stay in London resolved to go
into business there. He returned
to Tuscany to make some finan-
cial arrangements, passing through
Paris on the way — of which city he
gives a lively account. While in Tus-
cany he had many family annoyances,
especially with regard to his eldest

brother. He also went on to Naples,
where he met with Sir William Ham-
ilton. On this occasion he makes use
of an aphorism which may tend to
explain much of his success in life.
"I never wished," he says, "that any
one should say, 'Why is Mazzei
here?' but rather, 'Why is Mazzei not
here?,"

At the time of Mazzei's second re-
turn to Italy, the reigning Grand Duke
of Tuscany was Pier Leopoldo, the
duchy having passed to the house of
Lorraine. Pier Leopoldo was brother
of Joseph II., Emperor of Austria, and
of Marie Antoinette, and afterwards
became Emperor himself. Mazzei
disliked the whole family, calling the
Queen Marie Antoinette one of the
five enemies of France, the others ac-
cording to him being the Duke of Or-
leans, the English government, the
King of Prussia, and the Stadtholder
of Holland. He gives a most amusing
account of the way in which Maria
Theresa managed and governed her
whole family; Emperor, Grand Duke,
Duke, Queen of Naples, and Queen of
France, as if they had all still been lit-
tle children. Is it possible that his
very plain speaking about Pier Leo-
poldo may explain why his book was
published out of Italy and so long af-
ter the time it refers to?

When Mazzei returned to London
he had arranged for receiving regular
supplies of wines, cheeses, and other
Italian products for sale in England.
He opened a large, handsome shop in
London, in partnership with one
Martin, trading under the name of
Martin & Co. This Martin some time
after died, and Mazzei took his widow
and daughter to live with him, an act
which turned out to be the greatest

STORY OF MAZZEI

201

mistake of his life and the source of
much future annoyance.

In spite, perhaps in consequence, of
his business connections, he seems to
have come in contact with the best
London society of the day. It was at
this time that he made acquaintance
with Sir Horace Mann, whom he was
to meet again later on in Tuscany,
when he was himself agent for Vir-
ginia. He also seems to have been a
most influential person in the Italian
colony then resident in England. In
England too he first knew Franklin.

"At that time there came to me from
Florence a letter from the Abbe Fontana,
director of the Museum, asking, by order
of the Grand Duke Peter Leopold, for two
stoves made on Franklin's pattern. As
Franklin was in London, agent for the state
of Pennsylvania, I went to him, who
deigned to accompany me himself in search
of the stoves, having told me that it was
difficult to find them made exactly according
to his pattern, because artists (as he called
them) of that class were given to making
alterations of their own, disdaining to be
simply copyists. In fact we went about a
great deal, but did not find one. Finally,
when we had quite given it up, Franklin
caught sight of one, by chance, in a small
shop, where he had no idea of looking,
which diverged less than the others from
the proper form. While Franklin was in-
dicating the alterations he desired in the
two stoves he wanted, the man showed his
persuasion that he had done better by in-
terposing with, 'But I think — ' I would
not let him go on, pointed put to him his
silly presumption, and succeeded in induc-
ing him to go to Franklin's house the next
day with the materials for a small model.
This little scolding was the cause of Pier
Leopoldo's possessing the two first stoves
made in Europe exactly after Franklin's
pattern; and of making the fortune of the
person scolded, as he himself told me some
time after."

"Beginning in this way," says Mazzei, "I
contracted a friendship with Franklin, and

through him became acquainted with other
persons belonging to the Colonies which
now form the Republic of the United States.
One of these was Mr. Thomas Adams, a
Virginian, who, being a great friend of
Jefferson's, managed so that Jefferson and
I knew each other several years before we
met. There was in London a lady from
Virginia married to a Mr. Norton, an Eng-
lish merchant, of the highest class in the
city, who every year at Christmas gave a
dinner to all the Virginians. Mr. Adams
took me there, and this was probably the
reason, or at least one reason, why I knew
more Virginians than inhabitants of other
colonies."

These acquaintances opened a new
branch of business for Mazzei, namely,
shipments of his special wares to
America. He had the misfortune to
lose his shop and its contents by fire at
this time; but it was insured, and he
set up again in other premises, where
he lived in the same house with his
shop. It was then, he goes on to say,
that—

"For some time past my new American
friends, especially Doctor Franklin and Mr.
Thomas Adams, advised me to go and live
among them. I doubted lest their govern-
ment should be a bad copy of the English
one, and lest the bases of their liberty should
be even less solid than they were here, but
Franklin as well as Adams demonstrated to
me that there was no aristocracy, that the
people had not their eyes* dazzled by the
splendour of a throne, and that every head
of a family had a vote at the elections and
might be elected, that they had their own
municipal laws, and that of the English laws
they had only adopted such as were con-
venient to themselves. But what most con-
tributed to my determination was my cer-
tain knowledge of the views of the (Eng-
lish) government, which was to reduce the
colonies to rebel, to subdue them, and to
increase the number of officials in order to
facilitate the establishment of a despotism,
which should sustain itself upon its own
basis, without the need of bribing a par-
liamentary majority. The great improba-

202

STORY OF MAZZEI

bility that they would attain these endsi made
me hope that the colonies might arrive at
complete independence."

In short, thanks to his novelty-lov-
ing temperament, his native restless-
ness, he made up his mind to go out to
Virginia, — in those days a really ad-
venturous undertaking. To prepare
for it, he once more returned to his
native land, for he desired to take out
with him a number of Tuscan peas-
ants, as he wished to introduce the cul-
tivation of the vine into America. In
order to be able to do this, he had to
obtain permission from the Grand
Duke; and it was on the occasion of
this audience that sovereign and
subject indulged in a political talk.
For the news of the stamp act and the
tea duty troubles had just reached
Europe, and people were anxious to
know whether these events really fore-
boded a serious storm or were a mere
passing disturbance. Mazzei told the
Grand Duke that a breach between
England and the colonies was inevit-
able, because they did not understand
each other.

"The colonies," I said to him, "are per-
suaded that the Cabinet of St. James will
never take up arms against them, that if
they wished to do so the Parliament would
not permit it, that even if Parliament were
willing the nation would oppose it. The
Cabinet, on the contrary, believe that the
colonies will not have the courage to op-
pose regular troops, and that even in such
a case a few regiments, would be enough to
bring them back to duty. This mutual mis-
take will cause them to advance so far
(each expecting the other to recede) that
war will become inevitable, and I have the
courage to predict that your Imperial High-
ness (being so much younger than myself)
will have the satisfaction of seeing the rise
of a direct trade between that part of the
world and the port of Leghorn, without
the need of permission from England."

These prophetic words were recalled
at a later date by the Grand Duke him-
self.

Mazzei now proceeded to the coun-
try districts to choose his laborers,
submitting the names of those willing
to go out with him to the Grand Duke,
who gave him a written permission
signed by himself, allowing the peas-
ants to emigrate. Different times were
those, indeed, when the permit of the
ruler was required in order to enable
a subject to leave the country! The
Grand Duke also told him that if he
should ultimately wish for more la-
borers, they would be allowed to fol-
low him.

All was now ready for Mazzei's de-
parture, a vessel was found and hired,
when an unexpected obstacle occurred
in the shape of the defection of his ten
Tuscan peasants. It seems that a cer-
tain man of a village near Florence,
who had been in the Antilles with
mules, had told the men who had en-
gaged to go that in America the stars
fell from the sky and burned up those
men who were working in the fields.
By this silly story Mazzei lost his
Tuscans; but the men from the other
provinces kept their contracts, so that
the company was able to embark on
the second of September, reaching Vir-
ginia towards the end of November,
1773. Mazzei's contadini were rather
alarmed when they got into the tropics,
having heard the story of the "falling
stars."

"We arrived," Mazzei narrates, "before
•Cape Charles and Cape Henry one morn-
ing before daylight, and a pilot of the
coast boarded us. From him we heard that
the Colonial Assembly was then sitting at
Williamsburgh,but was nearly at an end. 1
knew that Williamsburgh was not far from

STORY OF MAZZEI

203

James River, and the pilot told me that be-
tween the town and the river there was the
house of Mr. Eppes where I could rest. We
were fifty miles out, but had wind and tide
in our favour, so we arrived quickly. The
pilot sent his boy with me to Mr. Eppes's
house."

Mazzei, it seems, was expected by
this Mr. Eppes, whose wife was Mrs.
Jefferson's sister.

"He ordered two carriages to be got
ready. One he sent to the' ship for my
travelling companions, Mrs. Martin and her
daughter, and in the other he drove with
me to the house of Mr. Richard Adams, to
whom I had sent a consignment of wine
from Leghorn, and who lived in Richmond.
The morning after, his brother Thomas
joined us, having been told by Mr. Eppes
of my arrival : he lived about 16 miles off."

Mazzei was treated with much dis-
tinction at Williamsburg. One of
the first gentlemen to call on him
was George Washington — "after-
wards rendered famous," writes Maz-
zei, "by having commanded the Amer-
ican forces during the war with Eng-
land, of which was born the Republic
of the United States, of which he was
the first president." Several members
of the assembly remained after its close
on purpose to meet Mazzei. His first-
care was to arrange for the shipment
of twelve ship-loads of corn to Leg-
horn, where there prevailed at that
time a great scarcity. He also himself
bought and despatched a ship with a
similar cargo, and several rare animals
and birds as presents for the Grand
Duke; among them was a rattlesnake,
which lived five years in Europe.

Soon after this Mazzei went with
Thomas Adams to the house of Mr.
Jefferson, then thirty-two years of age.
He was at once invited to take up his
quarters in Jefferson's house, where
he remained some time, knitting that

friendship which lasted their lives long.
Jefferson was able to talk in "Tuscan"
with the Italians who accompanied
his friend, though he had never heard
it spoken before. The European tools
and utensils which the little band had
brought with them were soon copied
and made use of in all the country
round. A tailor who was among the
group also found plenty of work, while
Mazzei's other workmen, in concert
with two hired negroes, were busy
clearing a piece of land that the Ital-
ian had purchased immediately on his
arrival.

The next step for Mazzei was to get
himself naturalized and legalize his re-
lations with Mrs. Martin, Thomas
Adams having told him that this was
quite needful to make his position pos-
sible in America. It proved an ill-
starred union. Lord Dunmore, the
English Governor of Virginia, seems
to have incurred Mazzei's dislike, and
his interview with his lordship on the
subject of his naturalization caused
him to indulge in some political re-
flections. He avers that the Cabinet
of St. James was desirous of keeping
the colonies apart, upon the principle
of Divide et impcra. But they had
perceived this, and the Virginian As-
sembly had elected a committee of
seven gentlemen whose duty it was to
keep up a correspondence with the
other colonies. This idea was due to
the genius of Dubney Carr, Jefferson's
cousin, who had recently died. Lord
Dunmore saw this at first with indif-
ference, but was sharply recalled to a
sense of his duty by letters from the
Government at home and owed the fact
that he was not recalled to the circum-
stance that he was a Scotchman and a
countryman of Lord Bute — at least

204

STORY OF MAZZEI

such is Mazzei's version. It is worthy
of note that Mazzei always speaks of
the English Government as the "Cab-
inet of St. James," because he says the
nation was from the beginning to the
end of the struggle opposed to the ac-
tion against the colonies.

Meanwhile the formation of volun-
teer companies was actually going on ;
also the convocation of the representa-
tives of the people, with the title of
"Convention" instead of Assembly, as
the right of convoking the assembly
belonged to the Governor, who im-
mediately convoked that body in order
to nullify the Convention. In return
the people elected the members of the
Assembly to the Convention. A com-
mittee of twelve was chosen to com-
municate with the other twelve colo-
nies. Mazzei was chosen one of these
twelve, only five of whom had more
votes than he had. Jefferson could not
be elected, being already a member of
the Convention. He (Mazzei) was
also chosen one of the commissioners
of the poor, and afterwards by them
one of the administrators. He was,
he says, delighted with these honors
because they gave so much pleasure to
the poor people whom he had brought
with him from Italy.

With the return of his brigantine
from Leghorn, six Lucchesi came out
to join him. The meeting between
the newcomers and his own people
was something never to be forgotten,
he tells us, so overjoyed were they at
seeing some countrymen. It seems
that at this time Mazzei was in the
habit of writing for Jefferson's news-
paper a weekly article in Italian, which
Jefferson translated into English.
After a while Jefferson begged him to
write in English, saying that transla-

tion weakened the Italian expression.
"Jefferson," says Mazzei, "was the
first person to observe that the Italian
language was capable of being em-
ployed with energy."

One May night about this time,
Lord Dunmore, after a long service
of stupid blunders (Mazzei says of
him : "His head was no better than his
heart, and he knew no more how to do
evil than how to do good") , was obliged
or thought himself obliged to take
refuge on board an English frigate,
leaving his family and property in the
hands of those who had become his
enemies. The Convention meantime
had prudently retired from Williams-
burg to Richmond. When the news of
the landing of the British troops at
Albermarle arrived, the "Independent
Companies" were called out. Mazzei
had three guns, he tells us; he gave
one to Bellini, an Italian who had
joined him by return of ship, one to the
tailor who took charge of the house,
and kept one himself, taking besides
three horses, which proved very use-

fill. : I, |ifi

Most interesting is Mazzei's account
of the march of this company, of which
Charles Lewis was captain, and in
which Jefferson and Mazzei were sim-
ple soldiers. At first they had no guns
except fowling pieces, but they
learned to make them, as well as
their own powder. They were soon
obliged to form another company, with
Patrick Henry for its Captain.

"Every imaginable means was
tried to keep peace with Great Brit-
ain; but finding this impossible, the
Convention declared independence,
followed by the Congress which gave
to the colonies the name of the United
States of America." Mazzei was soli-

STORY OF MAZZEI

205

cited to stand for Congress, but de-
clined, "because," he says, "I could
not, as a speaker, do myself justice in
English." Very amusing is his ac-
count of the catechism to which he was
subjected on this occasion, principally
on account of his religion, some peo-
ple fearing that he intended to intro-
duce papistry into the country.

Jefferson had confided to him, be-
fore this, that Patrick Henry (then
Governor of Virginia), George Mason,
John Page, and some others, with him-
self, had thought that it would be
proper that the State should send an
agent to Europe "for economic af-
fairs," and that the other gentlemen
had asked whether Mazzei would ac-
cept the agency. To this he replied,
that he accepted it willingly. The As-
sembly had already been given power
to pledge the State for a million
pounds, to be spent as should be con-
sidered necessary for the public good.
Mazzei relates :

"When I returned to Williamsburgh, all
was ready, both the commission, as well as
the instructions, to which I caused to be
added an order to mention the subject to
Franklin (the mission being of course se-
cret) and to obtain information and advice
from him, as the Congress had determined
to send him as envoy to France. The ses-
sion was over, and Jefferson was gone to
his country estate, so I did not meet him.
I went to the Governor, who had everything
prepared for me. I was asked whether 1,000
pounds sterling would be sufficient for my
expenses. I replied that I should require
that amount for the first year, but that if
my mission was prolonged beyond that time,
600 pounds would be enough, as, we should
be more respected if we preserved a decent
republican economy, even though it were not
imitated."

When all was ready, there occurred
the untoward accident that the vessel

in which Mazzei was to have embarked
was burnt by the British. He had
some trouble in finding another; and
hardly had this left port, when it was
captured by an English corsair and
taken to New York.

Fortunately Mazzei had made a
copy in cipher of his instructions, and
was able unseen to drop the originals
into the sea. When his papers were
examined, a letter from George Ma-
son to his son in England was
lost. Mazzei avers however that he
remembered it word for word, the
writer having read it to him. It ran
thus : "God bless you, my dear child,
and grant that we may meet again in
your native country as freemen;
otherwise that we may never see each
other more, is the prayer of your af-
fectionate father, George Mason."
Mazzei complains bitterly of the con-
duct of Sir George Collier, commander
of the British fleet.

After a period of detention in New
York, Mazzei was able to leave Amer-
ica at last and reached Cork, in Ire-
land, with four pounds in his pockets.
He speaks enthusiastically of the
kindness he received from General
Patterson, to whom he owed his per-
mission to leave America. He left
Ireland at night, to avoid the fate of
Mr. Lawrence, who was arrested and
taken to the tower of London, sailing
for Nantes in a Portuguese vessel.
This landed him however at Rochelle,
by reason of a mistake of the sailing
master, so, with his wife, step-daugh-
ter, and his servant, he had to proceed
to Nantes by land. In Nantes he was
extricated from his money troubles by
a kindly Irishman, and from thence
he wrote to the Governor of Virginia,
giving an account of his adventures

206

STORY OF MAZZEI

and describing his critical predica-
ment, owing to not having found at
Nantes as he had expected a duplicate
copy of his commission and instruc-
tions, which they had promised to send.
In Paris Mazzei's first care was to
seek out a translator who could put
into French his writings with regard
to American affairs. It came out
that Franklin, who had met with no
obstacles on his journey, had arrived in
France before Mazzei. He was living
at Auteuil, where he received the Vir-
ginian envoy on the footing of an old
friend.

"I explained my position to Franklin, tell-
ing him of the commission I had received
from Virginia and the reasons why I had not
arrived before. He disapproved of the con-
duct of the State of Virginia, saying that
foreign affairs should be left to the care of
the Congress ; and he lent me also a work
of his, translated into French by the cele-
brated Abbe Morellet, in which he demon-
strated that the United States were much
safer than England. But among the rea-
sons cited by him (after mentioning the
waste of public funds in England) is this,
that in America all public functionaries were
paid. At one time this certainly had not
been the case, but if it had continued would
have produced in time the worst conse-
quences, among which would have been that
of keeping out of public life all those whose
means were small, however superior they
might be. As the greater number of the
men of merit in any nation are not (as you
well know) the richest, this method if pro-
longed would have opened a way to the gov-
ernment of a few proud and powerful per-
sons, which is the worst of all possible
governments. But the good old doctor
would not concede the point nor correct his
mistake, which is the only weakness of his
otherwise just and solid argument. As to
what he said of the State of Virginia rela-
tive to the commission given to me, I re-
minded him that the powers granted by the
States to the general government consisted
only of making war and peace with other

nations, exacting military contingents for
the States, and deciding such questions as
arose between one State and another (in
which case the deputies from those States
could not vote) : and I added if anything
could be dangerous to the Union it would
be the error of putting themselves (the
States) under the direction of the general
government for their private affairs. But
he would not agree with me, and we talked
of other things."

One of Mazzei's own articles then in
course of translation into French dealt
with this very subject.

So here we find already thus early
Federal versus Democrat in full
force. Mazzei lingered in Paris much
longer than he had intended, waiting
for the duplicate copy of his instruc-
tions. He met many distinguished
persons there, including D'Alembert
Marmontel and Horace Walpole. But
his letters not coming he resolved at
last to proceed to Italy without them.
He arrived in Florence on a Thursday
evening (apparently in 1782).

"I went immediately to my friend Luider
Priore of San Simone ; and sent to the post
next morning for my letters. I had caused
letters to be written to me at Florence from
Paris, Lyons, and Geneva. They had been
seized as I expected and wished, as they
tended to give erroneous impressions to the
English cabinet. I went the same morning
to Savanti, another old friend, and told him
everything begging him to ask the Grand
Duke, in whose household he held an im-
portant position, when I could have an audi-
ence, and to tell his Imperial Highness that
the real object of my coming was known
only to their two selves. Savanti told me
it would be better to let his Highness sup-
pose that he only was in the secret. He had
always, it seems, boasted of being better
acquainted with American affairs than any-
one else, without ever hinting at the source
of his information. The Grand Duke told
Savanti that he was aware of my arrival
and that I might come on the following
morning — before 10 o'clock. Hardly had I

STORY OF MAZZEI

207

entered the room when he exclaimed: 'Cer-
tainly you have predicted everything which
has happened.' I drew from this a good
augury for the success of my mission. Be-
fore speaking of anything else I mentioned
my letters. He expressed great displeasure
at their having been stopped and ordered
that in future they should be given to no-
body but myself. I assured him that I was
quite certain that those I missed had been
taken on account of Sir Horace Mann, the
English envoy to his. government."

Now Sir Horace Mann and Mazzei
had been good friends, having known
each other in London years before.
Mazzei explained this to the Grand
Duke who authorized him to choose
his own line of conduct regarding
Mann. Mazzei knowing that the
English envoy breakfasted every Sun-
day in his garden and that many people
visited him in order to hear the latest
English news, went to him then, not
wishing to meet him for the first time
when quite alone. He writes :

"When I arrived, they were reading the
English Gazette aloud, but stopped on see-
ing me; and I almost immediately took my
leave on the ground that there were a great
number of people whom, I had to see that
morning. As I was passing through the
garden to go away, Sir Horace Mann en-
tered the storeroom which was parallel with
the path by which I was obliged to pass. I
had not seen him, but turning towards the
gate to go into the street I saw him coming
towards me, and understood that he had
taken this way of meeting me alone. I went
to meet him, he seized my hand but could
not speak. 'Signor Cavaliere,' I said, 'I can
read in your heart what you wish to say to
me.' I was as deeply agitated as he. 'You
can imagine,' said he in a broken voice,
'after so long an absence, to meet so dear a
friend, but,' still holding my hand, 'I de-
pend— I am not my own master.' I kissed
his hand, holding it in both of my own, and
left him. After this I never saw him. again.''

The Grand Duke was very anxious

to hear how the meeting had passed
off, and appeared much pleased with
Mazzei's account of the touching story.
It was now arranged that the agent
from Virginia should communicate
with the Grand Duke in writing, not
to draw attention by too frequent audi-
ences. He wrote, he thinks, eleven
letters, and also sent copies of his
papers already written, namely, "The
Justice of the American Cause" ; "The
Importance of Obtaining Trade with
the State of Virginia" ; and his favor-
ite "Reasons why the Americans
Should not be Called Rebels." The
first three papers he fears had been
either lost or destroyed. Another
called the "History of the Beginning,
Progress, and End of Paper-money in
America," written in 1782, is printed
in the appendix to his memoirs. Maz-
zei's letters to the Grand Duke were,
a description of his travels and adven-
tures (date August, 1781) ; a letter in
which he gives a translation from
Franklin, which seems to be lost ; in a
third he dwells upon the advantages
which would accrue to Tuscany from
trade with Virginia; a fourth (18th
April, 1782), referring to the paper
entitled "Reflexions Tending to Prog-
nosticate the Event of the Present
War" (in America), reminding his
Highness that all Mazzei's prophecies
had come to pass.

"In the' fifth letter" (writes Mazzei, dat-
ed the 27th of the same month) "I make him
(the G. D.) aware that I am informed of
what goes on in England, as well in the
Cabinet as in the Parliament, in order that
they may be warned: — and when you have
read the sixth, of which no mention was
made by that prince, the day after, to the
writer, whom he kept waiting for an hour
and three-quarters to show him that he had
no time to lose, being obliged to do every-

208

STORY OF MAZZEI

thing himself, you can form an idea of his
mind as well as his heart."

The letter in question gave an ac-
count of how Mazzei's instructions
had arrived from Paris without any
remittances, and of the urgent neces-
sity there thence arose for the return of
the Agent for Virginia to America,
stating that he was at liberty to
pledge the credit of the State, and ask-
ing for an advance in funds from His
Imperial Highness. It was certainly
rather unkind to "make no mention"
of such a letter as this. The seventh
was written, apparently by request, on
street-begging in Florence, which Pier
Leopoldo was anxious to put down.
He had therefore ordered papers to be
prepared giving the regulations in
force in Great Britain, Holland and
the Hanse towns. Mazzei prepared a
paper giving an account of his experi-
ences as an administrator of the poor
laws in Virginia.

Mazzei appears, notwithstanding his
apparent favor with the Grand Duke,
to have been unable to convince him
of the ultimate success of the Amer-
icans in their struggle for independ-
ence, and the consequent advantages
which would accrue to Tuscany from
the conclusion of a commercial treaty
between Congress and the Tuscan
government. In the eighth letter Maz-
zei tries to prove that he knew more of
English affairs than Mann did him-
self, as he saw only the Ministerial
Journals, while Mazzei read both sides.
There were two newspapers published
at this time in Florence, the "Gazetta
Universale" (Universal Gazette) and
the "Notizie del Mondo" (News of the
World). The editor of the first took
his English news from Sir Horace
Mann, and Mazzei regularly contra-

dicted them in the second. Once he
wrote his refutation in anticipation of
the English news, and was afterwards
obliged, in order to procure the libera-
tion of two young men accused of
stealing the English article, to reveal
his proceeding to the Grand Duke,
who assumed the credit of having
found it out himself. The eighth
letter begs that the Grand Duke will at
least give an answer to the Agent for
Virginia that he may carry back to
his State. He writes :

"You will be surprised at my patience
when you read the eighth and ninth let-
ters" (they are all masterpieces of courtly
flattery) "and will wonder how I could have'
spent so much time in trying to instruct a
prince whose conduct towards me in polit-
ical affairs will appear to you quite incom-
prehensible. But you will be able to see
that I did my best to satisfy the wishes of
my adopted, and to further the interests of
my native country. One day I was speaking
to him of the disposition and character of
my new compatriots, to shew him that the
'Cabinet of St. James' would never attain
their end. He answered, T am sure that
they can do a great deal by themselves, but
if they trust the French — ?' Although the
Queen of France was his sister, he could
not disguise his envious antipathy to the
Bourbons, and showed it in various ways.
For instance he was delighted with Rod-
ney's victory over the Comte de Grasse,
saying, 'II l'a le Grasse.' Another time he
said that American independence has never
been recognized by any power but France,
and on my reminding him that the Republic
of Holland also recognized it, he added:
'Holland hangs by a thread, and before
long, even the name of the Dutch Republic
will have ceased to exist.' "

Mazzei managed to convey the ac-
count of this speech to the Comte de
Vergennes in France, fearing, he says,
that there might be some secret league
formed against Holland. Soon after
this audience, Mazzei left Florence by

STORY OF MAZZEI

200

way of the Tyrol, for Holland. From
Amsterdam he wrote a tenth letter' to
Pier Leopoldo, telling him that prelim-
inaries of peace between Great Britain
and the United States were under dis-
cussion, and pointing out that there
was still time for him to arrange a
commercial treaty with the newborn
nation before any other power had
done so. "When you read my letter,"
he tells his friend, "you will wonder
that it produced no greater effect." It
is evident that the Grand Duke was
devoted to England and English ideas,
for the Austrian feeling towards Great
Britain as her "natural ally" was
strong in him. Mr. Adams had care-
fully prepared the way for Mazzei in
Holland, so that he was well received
there, and from a business point of
view successful. His evident power
of gaining friends stood him in good
stead, so that he was able to obtain
both money and influential assistance.
Mazzei's eleventh and last letter to
the Grand Duke was written from
Paris in 1783. It is very interesting,
but arouses wonder that Mazzei found
time to write, or Pier Leopoldo to read,
such lengthy documents. The Amer-
ican commissioners for the treaty of
peace were Franklin, John Adams, and
the Mr. Lawrence who had been a
prisoner in the Tower.

"After many conversations ' with these
gentlemen I had become cognizant of Euro-
pean as well as of American affairs, and I
pointed out in my eleventh letter to the
Grand Duke that I was quite aware of the
machinations of my enemies in Florence;
not with the hope that it would produce any
effect, but that I might not have to reproach
myself with leaving anything undone; and
also to relieve my feelings a little regarding
the foolish and puerile attitude maintained
towards me by that sovereign, whose char-

acter (too favourably painted by many
meritorious persons in Tuscany) was per-
fectly and universally known in Germany,
as soon as he became head of the House of
Austria."

Here Mazzei mentions how he had
heard, in Vienna, where he had gone
when in the service of Stanislaus, King
of Poland, such things, as if he lives
and they meet again he will tell his
friend ; they being too serious to com-
mit to paper. In Paris, Franklin pre-
sented him at court, an honor he had
much desired. Indeed he was so
"sought after" at this time that he en-
vied the power attributed by legend to
St. Anthony of Padua, of being in
two places at once. In November,
1783, he once more reached Virginia.
Here he learned that Jefferson was
gone to Boston to embark for France
where he was to succeed Franklin.
Mazzei wrote immediately to Condor-
cet, to Rochefoucauld, and others of
his French friends "that though they
had lost in Franklin one of the lumina-
ries of the century, they would find
themselves recompensed in his suc-
cessor."

Mazzei's first step on returning to
his adopted land was to render his ac-
count to the Governor and to receive
the honorarium owing to him. But
neither the Governor nor the Council-
lors knew anything about it, the public
papers relating to that period having
been burned. A meeting of the Coun-
cil was called, with the result that
Mazzei was requested to find witnesses
among those who had formed the gov-
ernment at the time of his taking the
office of envoy. In Mr. Jefferson's
house were found Mazzei's letter and
copies of Jefferson's answers (of
which Mazzei had received only one),

210

STORY Of MAZZEi

the authentic copies of Mazzei's com-
mission, and his instructions

"but nothing relating to the honorarium.
It was therefore necessary that I should
make a great round in search of witnesses.
Patrick Henry, who had been first Gov-
ernor of Virginia after the independence,
had moved about 250 miles away. The
nearest witnesses were James Madison,
then, that is, when I received the agency,
the youngest of the councillors of State,
and now President of the United States."

To him, as he lived only about
thirty miles from Mazzei's place, he
first went, and remained with him
four days, "discussing," he says, "an
affair which concerned the national
honor." This was a project then under
discussion for repudiating the debts
of Americans to British merchants,
as a measure of retaliation for the de-
struction wrought by British troops
in America. Patrick Henry had ex-
pressed his opinion in the strongest
terms in favor of repudiation. The
Madisons, father and son, were con-
vinced that Mazzei was the only per-
son who could dissuade him.

"Patrick Henry was a perfect gentleman,
good, universally loved and esteemed, and
the most seducing orator," says Mazzei,
"that I have ever known. I had determined
to go to him last of all ; but went there
straight from the Madisons, James Madison
accompanying me part of the way always
discussing the same subject."

Mazzei did, he says, succeed in per-
suading Patrick Henry, having had an
opportunity during an early walk
which he took the day after his arrival,
of persuading his steward first. Mad-
ison had made a copy of Mazzei's
narrative, which he took with him and
showed to Patrick Henry, consequent-
ly upon which he gave him a letter to
the actual Governor. After stating

that as his period of office expired im-
mediately after Mazzei's departure in
1779, he himself could not personally
give any account of his services, he
copied the following sentence from a
letter of John Adams to him which
that gentleman had given to Mazzei in
Paris June 23d, 1783, when he left
Europe to return to America. These
words are given by Mazzei in English :
"Mr. Mazzei has uniformly discovered
in Europe an attachment and zeal for
the American honour and interest
which would have become any native
of our country. I wish upon his re-
turn he may find an agreeable recep-
tion." "I have often told you," con-
tinues Mazzei, "that in that country
diversity of opinion does not diminish
friendship or esteem. I had been in-
formed of the character, the talents,
and the patriotism of Mr. John Adams,
and he had conceived a favourable
opinion of me from what he had heard
of me in Congress from the Virginian
deputies." In a controversy growing
out of a question of the real nature of
the United States Constitution, not
then reduced to writing, Adams and
Mazzei had taken different sides, not-
withstanding which he not only wrote
the lines quoted above to Patrick
Henry, but also letters regarding Maz-
zei still more favorably expressed to
his friends and relations in Boston.

In the end Mazzei obtained his mon-
ey, amounting to six hundred louis
a year for eight years of service, with a
declaration signed by the Secretary,
Mr. Blair, "that in all that time I had
conducted myself with zeal, activity,
and assiduity, and that the unfortunate
issue of the affair was in no way im-
putable to me, but to certain concur-
rent circumstances, and that my con-

STORY OF MAZZEI

211

duct merited the approbation of Con-
gress. It was ordered that a copy
should be given to me." A short time
after this it was considered advisable
that some clever person should go to
Europe to make it clear to Euro-
pean men of business how safe
they would be in dealings with
the United States, which the strange
state of their finances, owing to
the paper money, made it diffi-
cult to do in writing. Mazzei was
longing to get back to Europe and to
his friend Jefferson, and he eagerly
clutched at the idea of carrying out this
mission. Early in 1783 he started on
his second European trip, and reached
France without adventures. At Paris
he found Jefferson, "dear and charm-
ing as of old." He also saw Mar-
montel, Piccini the composer, and
many more old and new friends. Talk-
ing with Marmontel and Jefferson of
the ways of the envoys of different
powers, Jefferson said that he could
not see why they made so much mys-
tery about things of no importance, to
which Marmontel replied: "It is true
that they always keep the padlock on
their mouths, but if you took off the
padlock you would find that the trunk
was empty." About this time Maz-
zei began to write his Historico-Polit-
ical researches, originally begun in an-
swer to the strictures of the Abbe
Mably, on the American Constitution.
Jefferson was also writing, "at the re-
quest of many friends, his Notes
on Virginia." Meanwhile American
credit having righted itself there was
no longer any need for Mazzei's ex-
planations to the European powers,
and he could therefore listen to over-
tures made to him to enter the service
of King Stanislaus of Poland. In this

capacity he made himself very useful
and accumulated a modest competency,
which led to his contracting a second
and happier marriage. Mazzei avers
that it was in accordance with his ad-
vice that King Stanislaus abdicated at
the right moment. At the outbreak
of the French Revolution, he was
once again for a short time Charge
d' Affaires for the United States, acting
as agent for America. Years after this,
when Jefferson was President, Mazzei
received a letter from the Superintend-
ent of Public Works at Washington
asking him to send out two Italian
sculptors, for the service of the States,
who should conduct the decoration of
the Capitol at Washington, and beg-
ging him also to sound Canova as to
whether he would be willing to make
for the Government a sitting statue of
Liberty seven feet high. Canova, who
was at the time working on his statue
of Napoleon I., could not undertake
the commission. Mazzei then turned
to Thorwaldsen, but his prices proved
to be too high. It is certainly a pity
from an art point of view that Amer-
ica did not get this statue. Mazzei
afterward found two young sculptors
in S. Frediano, a suburb of Florence,
willing to go out to America, one
named Andrei, twenty-six, and the
other Franzoni, twenty-eight years old.

And herewith Mazzei's memoirs
come to a close as abrupt as their op-
ening was sudden. In what he calls a
supplement he adds, "Last night, re-
flecting on what I had written respect-
ing adding or taking away, I have
changed my mind. I am of opinion
that you may add the date of my death,
and a copy of my will. September
24th, 1813."

These are the last words of the book.

The First Organ in America

By Arthur W. Bray ley

N an unpretentious little chapel
in Portsmouth, N. H., stands an
instrument whose voice was the
first organ tone to be heard in
the New World. Could it describe
the scenes of which it has been a
spectator, often not a silent one, how
full of interest its narrative! It could
tell of the requiem for Queen Anne
and of the important happenings in
the reign of five kings upon the Brit-
ish throne before the crowning of
Queen Victoria. It could tell of the
stirring events of the Revolution, and
of how, at the age of eighty-four, it
sounded the dirge of Washington.
Sacred, however, to the holy purpose
for which it was erected, it has been an
onlooker instead of a participator in
the secular events of its time.

Its advent was the cause of a bitter
controversy that lasted for years and
brought upon the cultured donor the
severest censure. The prejudice
against organs — called by the Scotch
"a kist of whistles" and by the Puri-
tans the "devil's bagpipes" — was an
inheritance of the days of Puritanism
when the hatred of all forms of the
Established Church of England was
carried to, such a degree that the
Government was petitioned to "put
down all cathedral churches wherein
the service to God was most griev-
ously abused by the piping of organs,
ringing of bells, singing and trowling
of chants from one side of the choir

to the other, with the squeaking of
chanting choir boys, and such like
abomination which were an offence to
the Lord."

Cotton Mather, in his "Magnalia,"
has a question "whether such music
may be lawfully introduced in the
worship of God in the churches of the
New Testament." He says also, that
"there is not one word of institution
in the New Testament for instrumen-
tal music in the worship of God and
because God rejects all He does not
command, therefore, says in effect:
'I will not hear the melody of thy
organ.' But, on the other side, the
rule doth abundantly intimate that no
voice is now to be heard in the church
but what is significant and edifying
by signification, which the voice of in-
. struments is not." He asks, "If we
admit instrumental music in the wor-
ship of God how can we resist the im-
position of all the instruments used
among the ancient Jews? Yea,
dancing as well as playing and sev-
eral other Judaic actions."

The subject was discussed in va-
rious theses at Harvard College
Commencement :

"Do organs excite a devotional
spirit in divine worship?" Negative,
1730.

"Does music promote salvation?''
Affirmative, 1762.

"Does the recent reformation in
vocal music contribute greatly toward

Brattle Organ
Wind Chest and Arrangement of Metal Pipes

213

214

FIRST ORGAN IN AMERICA

promoting • the perfection of divine
worship?" Affirmative, 1767.

It was disputed even in England
whether organs were to be considered
superstitious and popish. They had
been destroyed or silenced in the time
of the Commonwealth and it was not
without much misgiving on the part
of timid Protestants that, after the
Restoration, one London church after
another admitted the suspected in-
strument. It was noted as one of the
high church reactions in Queen
Anne's time that churches without
organs had thinner congregations.

This organ was imported probably
in 1708 or 1709, by Hon. Thomas
Brattle, a noted citizen of Boston,
where he was born June 20, 1658, and
where he served from 1693 to 1713,
the year of his death, as treasurer of
Harvard College. He held a promi-
nent place in the town's affairs and
was distinguished for his activity and
ability as well as for the zeal and
readiness with which he devoted his
time, wealth and intellectual powers
to objects of private benevolence and
public usefulness. Mr. Brattle was
one of the founders of the Brattle
Street Church, first known popularly
as the "Manifesto church," his name
leading the list of communicants, and
he gave to the corporation the land in
Brattle Square on which the church
edifice stood. He was a zealous
friend of the church, but the liberality
of his religious views and his opposi-
tion to the popular witchcraft delu-
sion brought upon him great hostility
in both his private and public life.
He also was a musician of no mean
ability, and having none of the preju-
dices of the day against musical in-

struments and their use in public
worship, he imported from England
the instrument described in this ar-
ticle. The first reference to it is in
the Rev. Joseph Green's diary: "1711
May 29 (Boston). I was at Mr.
Thomas Brattles, heard ye organs
and saw strange things in a micro-
scope."

Mr. Brattle died in 171 3 and his
will, probated May 23 of that year,
among other bequests contains this
item: "I give, dedicate and devote
my organ to the praise and glory of
God in the said Brattle Street church,
if they shall accept therof, and within
a year after my decease procure a
sober person that can play skilfully
thereon with a loud noise ; otherwise
to the church of England (King's
Chapel) in this town, on the same
terms and conditions, and on their
non-acceptance or discontinuance to
use it as above, unto the (Harvard) col-
lege and in their non-acceptance to
my nephew, William Brattle."

The following action upon the mat-
ter was taken by the Brattle Street
Church :

"July 24, 1 71 3, the Rev. Mr. Wil-
liam Brattle, pastor of the church in
Cambridge signified by a letter the
legacy of his brother, Thomas Brat-
tle, Esq., late deceased, of a pair of
organs, which he dedicated and de-
voted to the praise and glory of God
with us, if we should accept thereof,
and within a year after his decease
procure a sober person skilful to play
thereon. The church, with all pos-
sible respect to the memory of our
deceased friend and benefactor voted,
that they did not think it proper to
use the same in the public worship of
God."

Brattle Organ, Showing the Small Wooden Octave or Principals

215

216

FIRST ORGAN IN AMERICA

The matter now rested with the of-
ficers of King's Chapel, and they ac-
cepted the gift. The entry in their
books recording the event is as fol-
lows: "At a meeting of the Gentlemen
of the church this 3d day of August
1 71 3, Referring to the organs given
by Thomas Brattle, Esq., De'as'd,
Voted, that the organs be accepted
by the church." And at another
meeting held February, 1714* it was
voted, "That the church wardens
write to Col. Redknap and desire him
to go to Mr. Edwards Enstone who
lives next door to Mr. Masters on
Tower Hill, and discourse him on his
inclination and ability to come over
and be the organist here at 30 pounds
per annum, this money, which with
other advantages as to dancing, mu-
sic, etc., will, we doubt not, be suffi-
cient encouragement." On March 2
of the same year it was "Voted that
the organ be forthwith put up."

We know that the organ lay un-
packed in the tower of the chapel
from the time it was received until
the above vote, a period of seven
months, and that between March and
December, 1714, pending the arrival
of Mr. Enstone, it was played by a
Mr. Price.

The following contract was made
by Col. Redknap with Mr. Enstone in
London, and is interesting from the
fact that it is the first agreement of
the kind in the country:

"Articles of agreement made, had, and
concluded upon the 29th day of June
Anno Domini, 1714, and in the thirteenth
year of the Reign of our Soverign Lady
Ann, By the Grace of God Ruler of
Great Brittain, France and Ireland,
Queen defender of the Faith etc,
Between Edward Instone of the city of
London, Gent, of the one part, and Collo

John Redknap of Boston, in North
America, Gent, (for and on behalf of the
churchwardens and vestrymen now and
for the Queens Chappel in Boston afore-
said) of the other part, in manner and
form following, viz ; whereas, the said
Collo John Redknap was authorized by
the churchwardens and vestrymen of the
Queens Chappel in Boston aforesaid, to
procure, contract and agree for them and
in their names with a person well quali-
fied and would undertake to be organist in
the said chappel; and if said Edward
Instone being a person fitly qualefied for
the said Imployment and willing to un-
dertake the same. It is therefore mutt-
ally covenanted, concluded and agreed
upon by and between said parties and the
said Edward Instone doth agree to ye
same, That the said Edward shall and
will by or before' the 25th day of October
next issueing, wind and weather permit-
ting, be in Boston in North America
aforesaid and being there shall and will
at all proper and usual times of Devine
service' officiate as organist in the said
chappel for and during the space of three
years certain, to be computed from the
day that the said Edward Instone shall
arrive at Boston aforesaid, and after-
wards for such term or time as the
churchwardens and vestrymen of the said
chappel now and for ye time being and
the said Edward Instone shall think fit
and agree upon. In consideration of
which voyage so to be performed by the
said Edward Instone, he, the said Collo
Jno Redknap, hath this day paid unto ye
said Edward Instone the sum of £10 of
lawful money of Great Brittain, the
Rec't whereof is hereby acknowledged;
and the said Collo John Redknap (for
and on the part and behalfe of the church-
wardens and vestrymen of the Queens
Chappel in Boston aforesaid now and for
the time being) Doth covenant promise
and agree to and with ye said Edward
Instone, his exc'r's and adm'r's that the
churchwardens and vestrymen of the said
chappel now and for the time being shall
and will from time to time and at all
times will and truely pay or cause to be
paid unto the said Edward Instone the
sum of £7 10s. per Quarter immediately

FIRST ORGAN IN AMERICA

217

after each Quarter day, current money,
of New England, for every Quarter of a
year that the said Edward Instone shall
officiate as organist in ye Chappel. And
to ye true performance and keeping of
all and singular covenants and agree-
ments herein before curtained each of ye
said parties bindeth himself, his excYs
and adm'r's unto the other of them, his
exc'r's and adm'r's and assigns in ye
penal sum of £20 of lawful money of
Great Brittain by these presents to be
paid recovered. In wittness whereof the
said partys to these presents have inter-
changeably set their hands and seals the
day and year first above written.

Edward Enstone (l. s.)

Sealed and delivered

in ye presents of

Jono Gawthorne

Stephen Bellas.
Gentlemen.

The £10 given to Mr. Enstone was
more than the church officers in-
tended should be paid, but Col. Red-
knap wrote them that as the organist
had to pay his wife's passage he could
not start for a less sum and that dur-
ing the time he was making prepara-
tions for the trip to New England he
would study the mechanical construc-
tion of the organ in order that he
would be able to make any repairs in
case of accident. It was not until
September 7, 1714, that the organist
left London for Boston, at least, that
is the date of the following letter he
brought to the vestrymen of King's
Chapel :

Gentlemen:

According to your former request and
Directions I now send you over Mr. Ed-
ward Enstone an organist to ye Kings
Chappel in Boston. I sent you in July
last by Capt. Lethered a copy of article
of agreement between him and myself.
What I have to say further* upon that
head is. That he is said to be a person
of sober life and conversation and well

qualified for what he has undertaken, and
I doubt not but he will approve himself
as such which will merit your assistance
in other matters relating to his profes-
sion.

I am Gentlemen with all respects
Your very humble servant

J. Redknap.

The organist brought with him not
only sacred music to these music-
silent shores, but also secular notes.
Judge Sewall records in his diary the
following significent entry :

"1716 (Nov) 29-5. After lecture Mr.
Welsteed and Capt. Wadsworth ac-
quainted Mr. Bromfield and me that a
Ball was designed at Enstone's in the
evening; pray'd us to prevent the Gov'r
being there. ... At last his Excel'y
promised us not to be there."

That Mr. Enstone's playing was
satisfactory to the congregation of
the stone chapel is attested by the fact
that on January 17, 171 7, at the ex-
piration of the three years' contract
he was re-engaged at the same salary.

In the year 1756 the organ was sold
to the parish of St. Paul's at New-
buryport, Mass., and another, said to
have been approved by Handel, was
imported from England at a cost of
£500, and was installed in its place.
The Brattle organ remained in its
new home till 1836, when it was pur-
chased for Saint John's Chapel in
Portsmouth, N. H., by Dr. Bur-
roughs for $400 and set up in the
chapel.

In the mean time, or about eighty
years after Brattle Street Church re-
fused the gift of its benefactor, a
change of opinion in regard to church
music had taken place among many
of its members, and an organ was
purchased in England by subscrip-
tion. It arrived safely in Boston

218

FIRST ORGAN IN AMERICA

outer harbor, but so great was the
opposition to its introduction on the
part of some members of the parish
that they sent a committee to the
minister, Dr. Thacher, desiring him
with pledge of making good the cost
of purchase, of freight and charges,
with damages, if he would make ar-
rangements with the captain of the
importing ship to have the cases con-
taining the instrument thrown over-
board. But the good doctor, being a
progressive man, declined to inter-
fere and the organ was in due time
set up and was used in the church till
1872, when the old edifice was taken
down and a new one erected in the
Back Bay.

The famous Brattle organ is 8 feet
2 inches high, 5 feet wide and 2 feet
7 inches deep, but contains no trace of
the maker's name. On the key frame,
written with lead pencil, is the name
"Mr. Edwards, Portland, Maine."
Mr. Edwards was an organ builder
and may have made the new case,
which is of light colored Honduras
mahogany. The sides are panelled
and the front is graced with seventeen
non-speaking gilded wooden pipes.
The key-board trimmings are of rose-
wood. The wind chest, slides, valves,
top-boards, rock-boards and rock-
board pins remain unchanged and
are of English oak — a common mate-
rial with old English organ builders.

The organ has six registers: Ses-
quialter bass, Dulciana, 15th bass,
15th treble, stopped Diapason, and
Principal. It is without foot pedal
keys and has but one bank of fifty-
one keys on the key-board manual
from CC to D, but the wind chest is
bored for forty-nine pipes, the CC
sharp and the D being stationary.

This key-board slides in when not in
use. The size of wind chest is that
of the key-scale, as the makers did
not know the use of the roller board
to spread the tone.

The octave or Principal is of wood
instead of metal and runs through all
the forty-nine pipes. The tone is half-
way between the modern octave and
the Flute Traverse The Dulciana is
of metal with thirty-one pipes tenor
G to E, the Fifteenth of metal with
forty-nine pipes divided at C. The
Dulciana originally was a two bank
mixture of ninety-eight pipes, but this
brilliant tone was not so suitable for
church music, hence the change.

The stopped Diapason and Fifteenth
are original. One of the most marked
peculiarities of this instrument is that
the stop Diapason treble begins at G
second octave, and the Dulciana be-
gins at the same note, and as the stop
Diapason bass is not controlled by
any draw stop it is on all the time and
consequently furnishes the bass for
both stops.

The Diapason bass pipes are set at
the back of the organ wherever there
is room without regard to natural or-
der. This singular arrangement may
be accounted for by the inability of
the early builders to put in a suitable
stop to control these pipes.

One of the lower pipes of the
Fifteenth bears the name "Joseph
G. Pike, 183 1 " and "E. G. Morss,
183 1," scratched with a sharp instru-
ment. The latter name suggests that
of Rev. Dr. Morss, rector of St.
Paul's Church, Newburyport, whose
son was an amateur organ builder.

The length of the lowest bass pipe
is 4 feet, being stopped gives an 8 feet
tone, the highest is C sharp fifteenth,

AUTUMN 219

and is pitched two octaves above the has been attached a rising of flat bel-

Diapason. lows which is filled by the organist

In regard to the register stop pumping at the front or by an as-
heads, that of the Dulciana is unmis- sistant working the pedal at the side,
takably a relic of the old days. The To the tone character of the sev-
engraving is quaint and inartistic, eral registers great praise cannot be
The Sesquialter bass gives some indi- given, because of the lack of proper
cation of age, but not so determi- equality and balance between them,
nate. The remaining register heads and because of the same lack between
are semi-modern and the work the several piped ones of each indi-
resembles that of John Bolton, who vidual register. Still, the tone is
about three-quarters of a century ago mellow and sweet, and when we re-
did such work for all Boston organ member that it was the first organ
builders. that ever pealed to the glory of God

A part of the original framework of in this country, we gladly overlook

the hinged bellows remains, to which all its shortcomings.

Autumn

By Ellen Frances Baldwin

AWAY, where the 'breath of the morning
In mist is enveiling the hills,
The clarion horn of a huntsman
The silence encompassing fills.

The sweep of an oncoming pageant

Far down through the hush draweth near,

All splendid in purple and scarlet

Comes Autumn, the king of the year.

The usurping Summer, before him
Has fled at the sound of his horn,

And on toward her far southern kingdom
He speeds through the mist of the morn.

For naught does he stop in his riding,
And naught in his swiftness he heeds,

Till he reaches the forest's dim chantry
Where Nature is telling her beads ;

There, lowly, a blessing he seeketh
Beside the sweet shrine of the fane ;

While the woods like a sunset are glowing
With the gleam of his lingering train.

Danvers, Massachusetts

By Frank E. Moynahan

"Landing on a green slope's side,
Grazing round the region wide,
Over wind-swept forests free,
Down the inlet to the sea,
Quoth the governor, 'What harm
If I here lay out my farm,
Plant my orchards, sow my maize
And in peace live out my days?
In my little sloop sail down,
When I must, to Salem town,
Ruling the good folk as well
As if I should with them dwell."

SO writes the poet of the land-
ing of Governor John Ende-
cott, who was the first gov-
ernor of the colony, and
who, with his followers, was the
first white man known to have set
foot on the soil of Danvers — good,

old Danvers, historic and famed, the
home of the hateful withcraft delu-
sion no more than the home of
some of the noblest men, the
bravest heroes, the greatest gen-
erals, the ablest legislators, the
most skilled physicians, the most
gifted writers, — rich in colonial and
provincial history, full of sacred soil
which covers the dust of men and
women revered in all parts of this
broad country, one of the most in-
teresting spots in the famous coun-
ty of old Essex, of the common-
wealth, in the land which, in June,
1902, observed its 150th anniver-
sary with elaborate exercises last-
ing three days.

Town House and Soldiers' Monument

220

Governor John Endecott

Captain John Endecott sailed up
the Wooleston River from Salem,
past Royal Side, now a part of Bev-
erly, and turning from the Wooles-
ton or Danvers River in the Soe-
wamapenessett River, so called by
the Indians — now Waters River,
and formerly known as Endecott and
as Cow House River — he took pos-
session of a grant of land* made to
him at a court of the governor,
deputy-governor and assistants, on

July 3, 1632. This tract was called
Birchwood in English, but Gov-
ernor Endecott named it Orchard
Farm. On this graceful slope he
built his house, and at once set
about clearing the land of the birch
trees with which it was covered.
At about this time he is said to have
planted the famous Endecott pear
tree, which still bears fruit annual-
ly, despite the severe ravages of
storm and time for over 250 years —

221

The Endecott Pear Tree

"Blossoms still — the living thought
Of good Governor Endecott."

Colonial times lasted from 1629
to 1692 — or, strictly speaking, colo-
nial days ended in 1684, when the
charter was abrogated. Soon after,
the ruling power was a president,
Joseph Dudley, with a council ; then
a sort of military viceroy, in the per-
son of Sir Edmund Andros, who
ruled from 1686 to 1689, but who
was then banished by the people,
and the reins of government taken
by Simon Bradstreet, last governor
under the first charter, who ruled
until 1692. In that year Massa-
chusetts received a new charter,
called the province charter, un-
der which the governor and lieuten-
ant-governor were appointed by the
crown, and all our laws were to be
222

sent to England for royal approval.
The charter was granted by Charles

I, king of England, Scotland, France
and Ireland, March 4, 1628-29. A
duplicate of this charter, with the
broad seal of England attached, was
sent to Governor Endecott in 1629.
The duplicate is preserved, 'but the
seal is lost.

For many years Danvers was the
Village Parish and the Middle Par-
ish of Salem, but the territory was
known .as Danvers several years
before it became a town, or as early
as 1745. It was first made a dis-
trict .in 1752, — not a town, because
a town could send a representative,
which was opposed by King George

II, because he did not want the
number of representatives increased
by making new towns. The people

Birthplace of Gen. Israel Putnam

pressed their claims, however, and
were successful in becoming a town,
on June 16, 1757. Objections were
made, and the bill was sent to Eng-
land. At Kensington Palace the
bill was disapproved, the king being
unwilling, but no heed was paid to
his decree, and Danvers became a
town. This incident is the basis of
the motto on the town seal adopted
a few years ago, which shows a pic-
ture of a local town meeting, with
the words : "The town meeting :
the purest of all democracies, the
strongest of all citadels of civil libT
erty." The seal also gives the date
of incorporation, with the words :
"The king unwilling."

The province charter ended with
Thomas Gage; the government was
for a short time in the hands of a
provincial congress, and in 1780 we
became one of the United States of
America.

May 18, 1855, North Danvers and
South Danvers were separated, tak-
ing the names of Danvers and Pea-
body, respectively, and later a slice
of Beverly was annexed to Danvers.

The origin of the name of Dan-

vers is in doubt. The only reason-
able explanation given is that there
was probably an English family by
that name, who came from Anvers
or Antwerp in France. The first
person of the name known to his-
tory was Roland D' Anvers, com-
panion in arms of William the
Conqueror. It is supposed that
some descendant of this family
came to these shores and sug-
gested the name. In England,
in the latter part of the seventeenth
century, Sir Peter Osborne married
Eleanor Danvers, and about forty
years later a grandson of theirs,
Danvers Osborne, came to this
country and was made governor of
New York. Osborne is an old name
here. The people of that name may
have been descendants of Sir Peter,
and if so, the name of the town is
reasonably accounted for.

Danvers is pleasantly and con-
veniently situated about twenty
miles northeast of Boston. It has
good steam and street railway fa-
cilities, municipal electric street
light and power, high pressure
water power, electric fire alarm,

223

224

DANVERS, MASSACHUSETTS

Gen. Israel Putnam

macadam roads, a free public library,
several railway stations, free postal
and rural delivery, a most excel-
lent high school and a number
of other schools of the best charac-
ter, St. John's College, churches of
all principal denominations, and va-
rious like advantages to make her
citizens contented and prosperous.

It is both a manufacturing and an
agricultural town. Shoes, leather,
electric lamps, cream of chocolate,
cements and chemicals, bricks and
boxes are the principal products of
the factory, while market garden-
ing is successfully carried on 'by
many. For certain vegetables and
small fruits Danvers has more than
a limited reputation.

The people, while not as unified
as those of smaller municipalities,
are nevertheless very social. Fra-

ternal, social and religious organ-
izations abound, there being nearly
one hundred within the town. A
travelling man once asked a citizen
what the people found to do here
evenings, to which the gentleman re-
plied that it was impossible to find
half enough evenings into which to
crowd the many events occurring.

To some extent it is a bedroom
for Boston, a considerable number
of men being engaged in business
in that city and residing here. The
town is growing appreciably, as any
town must when located so near
great centres.

Danvers's fame is widespread.
From here went settlers of Mariet-
ta, Ohio, and other places in the
great Northwest ; here was the
home of the first Putnams of Ameri-
ca, being the birthplace of General
Israel Putnam, the hero of the
Revolution and a commander at
Bunker Hill ; here was also born
that great general of the late war,
Major-General Grenville M. Dodge ;
in this town is the house from which
Rebecca Nourse was taken and
hanged as a witch ; here is the site
of the First Church, where was bred
the most infamous witchcraft per-
secution; here Generals Washing-
ton and Gage had headquarters;
through here passed Major Arnold
on his famous march from Cam-
bridge to Quebec ; on Danvers
River was sailed a steamboat long
before Fulton launched his craft on
Hudson River ; in the east part of
the town Hawthorne oft walked
over a road which now remains as
he described it in his writings ; with-
in our bounds is Oak Knoll — a
name at once associated with that

DANVERS, MASSACHUSETTS

22S

of the most beloved of poet.o,
the noble Whittier; here is
the Endecottt pear tree, per-
haps the oldest fruit-bearing
tree in the country ; here the
birthplaces of Judge Holten,
Colonel Hutchinson, General
Moses Porter; from here
went some of the bravest of
soldiers to the wars, back
here were brought many of
the noble men slain at Menot-
omy; Danvers soldiers were
most gallant in the Revolu-
tion, most brave and patriotic in the
Rebellion and in the war with Spain;
they will be as ready and daring in any
future conflict for right and justice.

Brief sketches of some of the
houses and places in town will per-
haps prove interesting. In the co-
lonial period the witchcraft delusion
is probably the most marked of any
local matter of history. Danvers
abounds in witchcraft material.

Off Water Street is the Jacobs
house, built in the first half of the
seventeenth century by Richard
Waters. From this house George

First Shoe Manufactory in the United States

"Oak Knoll"

Jacobs was taken and executed as a
witch. Tradition says that a son
strapped the body on his back, took
it back to the farm and buried it
close by the house. "Well, burn
me or hang me, I will stand in the
truth of Christ," were George
Jacobs's words when on trial for his
iife.

Ann Putnam, daughter of Ser-
geant Thomas Putnam, lived in a
house off Dayton Street, which is
still standing. It was said of her
that "she is perhaps entitled to be
regarded in many respects as the
leading agent of
all the mischief
that followed," al-
though at the
time, 1692, she
was but twelve
years old. She
joined the church
before her death,
which occurred in
1 716. She was
unmarried.

The Prince
house on Spring
Street was built
about 1660, by

226

DAN VERS, MASSACHUSETTS

^fm§M

Ann Putnam House

Robert Prince. His widow, Sarah,
married a man named Osburn. She
was one of the earliest of the witch-
craft victims.

The history of the Townsend-
Bishop-Nourse house, which is one of
the most dramatic of any in our
annals, is familiar to many. It was
probably built in 1636, and now
stands in good state of preservation.
It is off Pine Street. From here
was taken Rebecca Nourse and
hanged as a witch on Gallows Hill
in Salem. Her sons 'brought back
her body and buried it near the
house. A monument was erected a
few years ago by the Nourse Monu-
ment Association in her honor and
the honor of the twenty brave men
and women who defended her. Of
Rebecca Nourse the late Whittier
wrote : —

"Oh, Christian Martyr! who for truth

could die,
When all about thee owned the hideous

lie!
The world, redeemed from superstition's

sway,
Is breathing freer for thy sake to-day."

There are other houses and places
identified with the witchcraft hor-

ror ; but aside
from these are
many other mat-
ters associated
with the colonial
period.

Near the Dan-
versport railroad
station is the En-
decott burying
ground, on the
bank of Crane
River, formerly
Conamabsqnoon-
cant and Ducke River. Here are
buried various descendants of the
Endecotts, and probably some of Gen-
eral . Gage's soldiers. This was a
favorite camping ground of the In-
dians, and is a part of the grant of
land made to Rev. Samuel Skelton,
pastor of the Salem Church, in 1632.

On what is now Holten Street,
in 1768 was born Judge Samuel
Putnam, one of the ablest lawyers
and justices of the country, whose
decisions attracted the widest notice
and praise. He died in 1853. The
house is now occupied by Putnams.
The Porter-Bradstreet house, near
the Topsfield line, passed from
Emanuel Downing — father of Sir
George Downing, for whom Down-
ing Street in London was named — ■
to John Porter, patriarch of the
Porter family, one of whose de-
scendants was one of the colonizers
of Marietta, Ohio. The house was
probably built in the seventeenth
century.

The First Church is one of the
most interesting objects. The pres-
ent 'building was erected in 1891,
being the sixth, and the fifth on the
present site. The association of this

Endecott Burying Ground

Old Training Field and Memorial Bowlder

227

228

DANVERS, MASSACHUSETTS

Rebecca Nourse House

church with witchcraft is all too well
known. The parsonage close by is
built on the site of Deacon Nathaniel
Ingersoll's house. Deacon Inger-
soll often entertained Increase and
Cotton Mather. He gave a lot of
land to the town "for a training-
field forever," and this land, known
as the common, was suitably desig-
nated by a commemorative bowlder
by the town in 1894. It is near the
First Church.

The Endecott house at Danvers-
port was built by a son of the gov-
ernor, Zerobabel. He was a physi-
cian and married a daughter of
Governor John Winthrop, Jr., of
Connecticut. The house is in good
preservation, although built about
1680.

The Clark house, on Summer
Street, built in the seventeenth
century, was the home of
Joseph Putnam, son of Lieu-
tenant Thomas Putnam, and
grandson of the first John
Putnam. In the horrible
witchcraft days of 1692
Joseph Putnam was practically
alone in defying Rev. Samuel
Parris, and for months his
life was in danger. He was

the father of General Israel Put-
nam.

Samuel Holten, one of the
brightest lights of the town, was
born in a house now standing at
the corner of Holten and Centre
Streets, Danvers Centre. He was
an eminent physician and jurist.
The house was built probably
about 1650 by Benjamin Houlton.
Samuel Holten was born in 1738
and died in 1816.
The birthplace of General Israel
Putnam, that hero of the Revolution
and commander at Bunker Hill, the
man who rode down the stone steps
and entered the wolf's den, is sit-
uated at the foot of the hill upon
which is located that great state in-
stitution, the Danvers Lunatic Hos-
pital. General Putnam was born
January 7, 1717 or 1718, and died
May 19, 1790. His life story is fa-
miliar to all readers of history.

Other interesting places asso-
ciated with the colonial period are
the site of the Porter-Lindall house,
the Haines house, the Rea-Putnam-
Fowler house, Benjamin Putnam
house, old Ipswich Road, Forest
vStreet, Porter's River, Long Hill or
Folly Hill. Of Long Hill Haw-
thorne wrote : "This eminence is a

Rebecca Nourse Monument

DANVERS, MASSACHUSETTS

229

long ridge, rising out of the level
country around, like a whale's
back out of a calm sea, with the
head and tail beneath the surface."
Hawthorne often visited the hill.
Upon the elevation a Salem mer-
chant once built a mansion, which
was damaged by an earthquake.

"Upon thy summit how serene
And beautiful the widespread scene."

Of the long lane at the foot of
the hill, now Foster Street, Haw-
thorne wrote : "Along its base ran
a green and seldom trodden lane,
with which I was very familiar in
my boyhood. And there was a
brook which I remember to have
dammed up till its overflow made
a mimic ocean. When I last
looked for this tiny streamlet,
which was still rippling freshly
through my memory, I found it
strangely shrunken, a mere ditch,
indeed, and almost a dry one; but th'

Gen. Moses Porter

green lane was there precisely as I re-
membered it — two wheel tracks, and
the beaten path of the horses' feet, and
grassy strips between the whole."

The road to-day is practically as
Hawthorne described it, having
been 'but comparatively little used.

The provincial period is marked
by several noted houses and places.
At one end of the Danvers Centre
common, or Ingersoll training-field,
previously alluded to, is the old
Upton Tavern, built about 1710, by
Walter Smith, afterward owned by
George Upton. It was a famous
old hostelry, used for meetings of
every sort.

Ambrose Hutchinson, son of
Joseph and grandson of Richard
Hutchinson, the progenitor of the
Hutchinsons of this country, lived on

Page House

Forest Street, in a quaint old house,
still standing, built about 1708.

In Putnamville, at the foot of
Porter's Hill, is the birthplace of
General Moses Porter, built early in
the eighteenth century. It was also
the birthplace of other distinguished
men. Originally it was the home of
Zerubabbel Rea, who was born in
1687 and died in 1739, and wh*o was
the grandson of Daniel Rea, the
patriarch of the Rea family. Dr.
Caleb Rea was born here, who was
a surgeon in a regiment on the ex-
pedition against Ticonderoga. Sarah
Rea, his sister, married Benjamin
Porter, and they were the parents
of that distinguished general of the
Revolution and of the War of 1812,
Moses Porter. "Moses Porter, when
eighteen " years of age, attracted at-
tention by his heroic courage and
indomitable pluck at Bunker Hill.
No man who fought at Bunker Hill
remained so long a soldier of the
United States. No man had so ex-
230

tended a record, and it was bright
from its beginning to the end." The
Porter house is soon to be destroyed
and a modern house built on the site
by a recent purchaser of the estate.

Colonel Israel Hutchinson was
born on what is now Centre Street,
Danvers Centre. The old house,
built in 1726, stands back to the
street and faces the open field.
Here, in November, 1727, was born
Israel Hutchinson, son of Elisha
Hutchinson, who in early life was
one of a scouting party in Maine
wilds in Indian warfare. He was at
Ticonderoga and Lake George, and
with Wolfe when he scaled the
Heights of Abraham. He led a
company of minutemen on the
morning of the nineteenth of April,
1775, and was prominent at the siege
of Boston, commanding at Fort Hill
on evacuation. For twenty-one
years he was elected to Senate,
House or Council. He died in 1811.

On Maple Street, at Ferncroft,

DANVERS, MASSACHUSETTS

231

formerly Beaver Brook, is the
Jesse Putnam house, built about
the middle of the last century.
Here lived Deacon Joseph Put-
nam, and after him his son, Col-
onel Jesse Putnam, whose widow
survived him twenty-six years and
died in 1887 at the age of 102 years,
10 months and 6 days.

The Page house is one of the
most interesting landmarks in town.
It is on Elm Street, close by the
public square. The house was built
near the middle of the eighteenth
century by Jeremiah Page, who be-
came a captain and colonel in the
Revolutionary War. In this house
General Gage had a private office,
while his headquarters were at "The
Lindens" of to-day, and upon its
roof Colonel Page's wife Sarah held
a tea party, having been forbidden
by her husband to have tea under
its roof. According to the poet,
quoth Mrs. Page to her friends : —

"The Lindens"

"A goodly prospect as I said
You here may see before you spread
Upon a house and not within it;
But now we must not waste a minute,
Neighbors, sit down to tea!"

In 1774 Governor Gage, the new
governor and captain-general of the
colony, took up his official residence
at the house of Hon. Robert
Hooper, where he remained for

Endicott Mansion

Old Berry Tavern

some time, and for a while was pro-
tected by troops. The place has
been known as the Collins house,
and is now called "The Lindens/'
It much resembles the old John
Hancock house of Boston. It is an
important historic spot.

The third period of the town's
history, the times of the common-
wealth, is also marked by many
notable houses and localities. Of
the first may be mentioned Oak
Knoll, known all over the civilized
world as the home of the late poet
Whittier. The land is a part of the
grant made to John Putnam, the
first of the name, from whom most
of the Putnams of America are de-
scended.

The Wadsworth house at Dan-
vers Centre was for years the home
of Rev. Benjamin Wadsworth, one
of the early pastors of the First
Church. It is about no years old.
It stands near the site of the old
Parris house, and a portion of it is
said to have been made from tim-
232

bers taken from that famous build-
ing. Dr. Wadsworth was settled
over the First Church for more than
half a century. He died in 1826.

The late ex-Secretary of War
William . C. Endicott occupied the
Ingersoll-Peabody house at Dan-
vers Centre, built about 1800 by
Captain Jonathan Ingersoll.

At Danversport is the Reed-Por-
ter house, built near the close of
the eighteenth century by Hon.
Nathan Reed. Mr. Reed used steam
for navigation eighteen years before
Fulton's experiments, sailing a craft
on the river near by his home, and
having for guests Governor John
Hancock and others. Fie was born
in 1759 and died in 1849.

General Grenville M. Dodge, one
of the greatest commanders of the
Civil War, was born in the L of the
old Elias Putnam house, near the
Topsfield line, which L now forms
part of a tenement house near by
his birthplace. He was born in
183 1 and entered the army as

DAN VERS, MASSACHUSETTS

233

colonel of the Fourth Iowa Volun-
teers. He was seriously wounded
at the battle of Pea Ridge, three
horses being shot from under him.
He was made brigadier-general,
major-general, and received other
high honors at the hands of General
Grant. He was again wounded
while at Atlanta with Sherman.
He assisted the engineers who built
the St. Gothard tunnel under the
Alps.

Two soldiers' monuments mark
Danvers's part in war. ■ One is in
Peabody, formerly Danvers, erected
in 1835 to commemorate those
who fell at Menotomy on April 19,
1775. The other is in front of
the town house in Danvers, erected
in 1870 to the memory of those
who were killed in the war of the
Rebellion.

The town is quite well supplied

with churches and public buildings.
Of the former all principal denom-
inations are represented.

The Danvers Lunatic Hospital is
a state institution. It is located 0:1
a high hill. There are about 1,000
patients and over 100 employees.

St. John's Normal College is a
private institution of learning.

The Peabody Institute, a hand-
some and convenient building, was
erected from a fund given by the
late George Peabody, the philan-
thropist. The original building was
burned a few years ago. The build-
ing contains a fine public library of
nearly 20,000 volumes.

Danvers has many advantages
and attractions not here mentioned,
which cannot but make toward the
early advancement and general
growth of the town, whose popula-
tion is now nearly 9,000.

The Treasure of Far Island

By Willa Sibert Cather

Dark brown is the river,

Golden is the sand;
It flows along forever,

With trees on either hand."

— Robert Louis Stevenson.

FAR ISLAND is an oval sand
bar, half a mile in length
and perhaps a hundred
yards wide, which lies about
two miles up from Empire City in
a turbid little Nebraska river. The
island is known chiefly to the chil-
dren who dwell in that region, and
generation after generation of them
have claimed it ; fished there, and
pitched their tents under the great
arched tree, and built camp fires
on its level, sandy outskirts. In the
middle of the island, which is al-
ways above water except in flood
time, grow thousands of yellow-
green creek willows and cottonwood
seedlings, brilliantly green, even
when the hottest winds blow, by
reason of the surrounding moisture.
In the summer months, when the
capricious stream is low, the chil-
dren's empire is extended by many
rods, and a long irregular beach of
white sand is exposed along the east
coast of the island, never out of the
water long enough to acquire any
vegetation, but dazzling white, rip-
ple marked, and full of possibilities
for the imagination.* The island is
No-Man's-Land ; every summer a
234

new chief claims it and it has 'been
called by many names ; but it
seemed particularly to belong to the
two children who christened it Far
Island, partially because they were
the original discoverers and claim-
ants, but more especially because
they were of that favored race
whom a New England sage called
the true land-lords and sea-lords of
the world.

One afternoon, early in June, the
Silvery Beaches of Far Island were
glistening in the sun like pounded
glass, and the same slanting yellow
rays that scorched the sand beat
upon the windows of the passenger
train from the East as it swung
into the Republican Valley from the
uplands. Then a young man dressed
in a suit of gray tweed changed his
seat in order to be on the side of
the car next the river. When he
crossed the car several women
looked up and smiled, for it was
with a movement of boyish abandon
and an audible chuckle of delight I
that he threw himself into the seat
to watch for the shining curves of I
the river as they unwound through
the trees. He was sufficiently dis-
tinguished in appearance to interest
even tired women at the end of a
long, sultry day's travel. As the
train rumbled over a trestle built
above a hollow grown up with sun-
flowers and ironweed, he sniffed

THE TREASURE OF FAR ISLAND

235

with delight the rank odor, familiar
to the prairie bred man, that is ex-
haled by such places as evening ap-
proaches. "Ha," he murmured un-
der his breath, "there's the white
chalk cliff where the Indians used
to run the buffalo over Bison Leap
— we kids called it — the remote sea
wall of the boy world. I'm getting
home sure enough. And heavens !
there's the island, Far Island, the
Ultima Thule ; and the arched tree,
and Spy Glass Hill, and the Silvery
Beaches ; my heart's . going like a
boy's. 'Once on a day he sailed
away, over the sea to Skye.' ,:

He sat bolt upright with his lips
tightly closed and his chest swell-
ing, for he was none other than the
original discoverer of the island,
Douglass Burnham, the playwright
— our only playwright, certain crit-
ics contend — and, for the first time
since he left it a boy, he was coming
home. It was only twelve years ago
that he had gone away, when Pagie
and Temp and Birkner and Shorty
Thompson had stood on the station
siding and waved him good-by,
while he shut his teeth to keep the
tears back ; and now the train bore
him up the old river valley, through
the meadows where he used to hunt
for cat-tails, along the streams
where he had paddled his canvas
boat, and past the willow-grown
island where he had buried the
pirate's treasure, — a man with a
man's work done and the world well
in hand. Success had never tasted
quite so sweet as it tasted then.
The whistle sounded, the brake-
man called Empire City, and Doug-
lass crossed to the other side of
the car and looked out toward the

town, which lay half a mile up from
the station on a low range of hills,
half hidden by the tall cottonwood
trees that still shaded its streets.
Down the curve of the track he
could see the old railroad "eating
house," painted the red Burlington
color; on the hill above the town the
standpipe towered up from the tree-
tops. Douglass felt the years drop-
ping away from him. The train
stopped. Waiting on the platform
stood his father and a tall spare
man, with a straggling colorless
beard, whose dejected stoop and
shapeless hat and ill fitting clothes
were in themselves both introduc-
tion and biography. The narrow
chest, long arms, and skinny neck
were not to be mistaken. It was
Rhinehold Birkner, old Rhine who
had not been energetic enough to
keep up his father's undertaking-
business, and who now sold sewing
machines and parlor organs in a
feeble attempt to support an invalid
wife and ten children, all colorless
and narrow chested like himself.
Douglass sprang from the platform
and grasped his father's hand.

"Hello, father, hello, Rhine,
where are the other fellows? Why,
that's so, you must be the only one
left. Heavens ! how we have scat-
tered. What a lot of talking we two
have got before us."

Probably no event had transpired
since Rhine's first baby was born
that had meant so much to him as
Douglass's return, but he only
chuckled, putting his limp, rough
hand into the young man's smooth,
warm one, and ventured, —

"Jest the same old coon, Doug."

"How's mother, father?" Doug-

!36

THE TREASURE OF FAR ISLAND

lass asked as he hunted for his
checks.

"She's well, son, but she thought
she couldn't leave supper to come
down to meet you. She has been
cooking pretty much all day and
worrying for fear the train would be
late and your supper would spoil."

"Of course she has. When I am
elected to the Academy mother will
worry about my supper." Douglass
felt a trifle nervous and made a dash
for the shabby little street car which
ever since he could remember had
been drawn by mules that wore
jingling bells on their collars.

A silence settled down over the
occupants of the car as the mules
trotted off. Douglass felt that his
father stood somewhat in awe of
him, or at least in awe of that dread
Providence which ordered such
dark things as that a hard-headed,
money-saving real estate man
should be the father of a white fin-
gered playwright who spent more on
his fads in a year than his father
had saved by the thrift of a life-
time. All the hundred things Doug-
lass had had to say seemed con-
gested upon his tongue, and though
he had a good measure of that
cheerful assurance common to
young people whom the world has
made much of, he felt a strange em-
barrassment in the presence of this
angular gray-whiskered man who
used to warm his jacket for him in
the hayloft.

His mother was waiting for him
under the bittersweet vines on the
porch, just where she had always
stood to greet him when he came
home for his college vacations, and,
as Douglass had lived in a world

where the emotions are cultivated
and not despised, he was not
ashamed of the lump that rose in
his throat when he took her in his
arms. She hurried him out of the
dark into the parlor lamplight and
looked him over from head to foot
to assure herself that he was still
the handsomest of men, and then
she told him to go into her bedroom
to wash his face for supper. She
followed him, unable to take, her
eyes from this splendid creature
whom all the world claimed but
who was only hers after all. She
watched him take off his coat and
collar, rejoicing in the freshness of
his linen and the whiteness of his
skin ; even the color of his silk sus-
penders seemed a matter of impor-
tance to her.

"Douglass," she said impressive-
ly, "Mrs. Governor gives a reception
for you to-morrow night, and I have
promised her that you will read
some selections from your plays."

This was a matter which was
very near Mrs. Burnham's heart.
Those dazzling first nights and re-
ceptions and author's dinners which
happened out in the great world
were merely hearsay, but it was a
proud day when her son was held
in honor by the women of her own
town, of her own church ; women
she had shopped and marketed and
gone to sewing circle with, women
whose cakes and watermelon pickles
won premiums over hers at the
county fair.

"Read?" ejaculated Douglass,
looking out over the towel and
pausing in his brisk rubbing, "why,
mother, dear, I can't read, not any
more than a John rabbit. Besides,

THE TREASURE OF FAR ISLAND

237

plays aren't meant to be read. Let
me give them one of my old stunts ;
'The Polish Boy' or 'Regulus to the
Carthaginians.' "

"But you must do it, my son ; it
won't do to disappoint Mrs. Gov-
ernor. Margie was over this morn-
ing to see about it. She has grown
into a very pretty girl." When his
mother spoke in that tone Douglass
acquiesced, just as naturally as he
helped himself to her violet water,
the same kind, he noticed, that he
used to covertly sprinkle on his
handkerchief when he was primping
for Sunday school after she had
gone to church.

"Mrs. Governor still leads the
pack, then? What a civilizing in-
fluence she has been in this com-
munity. Taught most of us all the-
manners we ever knew. Little
Margie has grown up pretty, you
say? Well, I should never have
thought it. How many boys have
I slugged for yelling 'Reddy, go dye
your hair green' at her. She was
not an indifferent slugger herself
and never exactly stood in need of
masculine protection. What a wild
Indian she was ! Game, clear
through, though! I never found
such a mind in a girl. But is she a
girl? I somehow always fancied
she would grow up a man — and a
ripping fine one. Oh, I see you are
looking at me hard ! No, mother,
the girls don't trouble me much."
His eyes met hers laughingly in
the glass as he parted his hair.
"You spoiled me so outrageously
that women tell me frankly I'm
a selfish cad and they will have none
of me."

His mother handed him his coat

with a troubled glance. "I was
afraid, my son, that some of those
actresses — "

The young man laughed out-
right. "Oh, never worry about
them, mother. Wait till you've seen
them at rehearsals in soiled shirt-
waists wearing out their antiques
and doing what they call 'resting'
their hair. Poor things ! They
have to work too hard to bother
about being attractive."

He went out into the dining-
room where the table was set for
him just as it had always been when
he came home on that same eight
o'clock train from college. There
were all his favorite viands and the
old family silver spread on the white
cloth with the maidenhair fern pat-
tern, under the soft lamplight. It
had been years since he had eaten
by the mild light of a kerosene
lamp. By his plate stood his own
glass that his grandmother had
given him with "For a Good Boy"
ground on the surface which was
dewy from the ice within. The
other glasses were unclouded and
held only fresh water from the
pump, for his mother was very
economical about ice and held the
most exaggerated views as to the
pernicious effects of ice water on
the human stomach. Douglass only
got it because he was the first dram-
atist of the country and a great man.
When he decided that he would like
a cocktail and asked for whiskey, his
mother dealt him out a niggardly
tablespoonful, saying, "That's as
much as you ought to have at your
age, Douglass." When he went
out into the kitchen to greet the old
servant and get some ice for his

238

THE TREASURE OF FAR ISLAND

drink, his mother hurried after him
crying with solicitude, —

"I'll get the ice for you, Doug-
lass. Don't you go into the re-
frigerator; you always leave the ice
uncovered and it wastes."

Douglass threw up his hands,
"Mother, whatever I may do in the
world I shall never be clever enough
to be trusted with that refrigerator.
'Into all the chambers of the palace
mayest thou go, save into this thou
shalt not go.' " And now he knew
he was at home, indeed, for his
father stood chuckling in the door-
way, washing his hands from the
milking, and the old servant threw
her apron over her head to stifle
her laughter at this strange recep-
tion of a celebrity. The memory of
his luxurious rooms in New York,
where he lived when he was an
artist, faded dim ; he was but a boy
again in his father's house and
must not keep supper waiting.

The next evening Douglass with
resignation accompanied his father
and mother to the reception given
in his honor. The town had ad-
vanced somewhat since his day; and
he was amused to see his father ap-
pear in an apology for a frock coat
and a black tie, such as Kentucky
politicians wear. Although people
wore frock coats nowadays they still
walked to receptions, and as Doug-
lass climbed the hill the whole situ-
ation struck him as farcical. He
dropped his mother's arm and ran
up to the porch with his hat in
his hand, laughing. "Margie!" he
called, intending to dash through
the house until he found her. But
in the vestibule he bumped up
against something large and splen-

did, then stopped and caught his
breath. A woman stood in the dark
by the hall lamp with a lighted
match in her hand. She was in
white and very tall. The match
burned but a moment; a moment
the light played on her hair, red as
Etruscan gold and piled high above
the curve of the neck and head ; a
moment upon the oval chin, the
lips curving upward and red as a
crimson cactus flower; the deep,
gray, fearless eyes ; the white
shoulders framed about with dark-
ness. Then the match went
out, leaving Douglass to wonder
whether, like Anchises, he had seen
the vision that should forever blind
him to the beauty of mortal women.
"I beg your pardon," he stam-
mered, backing toward the door,
"I was looking for Miss Van Dyck.
Is she — " Perhaps it was a mere
breath of stifled laughter, perhaps it
was a recognition by some sense
more trustworthy than sight and
subtler than mind ; but there seemed
a certain familiarity in the darkness
about him, a certain sense of the se-
curity and peace which one expe-
riences among dear and intimate
things, and with widening eyes he
said softly, —

"Tell me,. is this Margie?"
There was just a murmur of
laughter from the tall, white figure.
"I was going to be presented to you
in the most proper form, and now
you've spoiled it all. How are you,
Douglass, and did you get a whip-
ping this time? You've played
hooky longer than usual. Ten
years, isn't it?" She put out her
hand in the dark and he took it and
drew it through his arm.

THE TREASURE OF FAR ISLAND

239

"No, I didn't get a whipping, but
I may get worse. I wish I'd come
back five years ago. I would if I had
known," he said promptly.

The reading was just as stupid as
he had said it would be, but his audi-
ence enjoyed it and he enjoyed his
audience. There was the old
deacon who had once caught him in
his watermelon patch and set the
dog on him ; the president of the
W. C. T. U., with her memorable
black lace shawl and cane, who still
continued to send him temperance
tracts, mindful of the hundredth
sheep in the parable ; his old Sunday
school teacher, a good man of lim-
ited information who never read
anything but his Bible and Teach-
ers' Quarterly, and who had once
hung a cheap edition of "Camille"
on the church Christmas tree for
Douglass, with an inscription on the
inside to the effect that the fear
of the Lord is the beginning of
Wisdom. There was the village
criminal lawyer, one of those bril-
liant wrecks sometimes found in
small towns, who, when he was so
drunk he could not walk, used to lie
back in his office chair and read
Shakespeare by the hour to a little
barefoot boy. Next him sat the rich
banker who used to offer the boys a
quarter to hitch up his horse for
him, and then drive off, forgetting
all about the quarter. Then there
were fathers and mothers of Doug-
lass's old clansmen and vassals who
were scattered all over the world
now. After the reading Douglass
spent half an hour chatting with
nice tiresome old ladies who re-
minded him of how much he used
to like their tea-cakes and cookies,

and answering labored compliments
with genuine feeling. Then he went
with a clear conscience and light
heart whither his eyes had been
wandering ever since he had entered
the house.

"Margie, I needn't apologize for
not recognizing you, since it was
such an involuntary compliment.
However did you manage to grow
up like this? Was it boarding
school that did it? I might have
recognized you with your hair
down, and oh, I'd know you any-
where when you smile ! The teeth
are just the same. Do you still
crack nuts with them?"

"I haven't tried it for a long time.
How remarkably little the years
change you, Douglass. I haven't
seen you since the night you
brought out 'The Clover Leaf,' and
I heard your curtain speech. Oh,
I was very proud of our Pirate
Chief !"

Douglass sat down on the piano
stool and looked searchingly into
her eyes, which met his with laugh-
ing frankness.

• "What ! you were in New York
then and didn't let me know? There
was a day when you wouldn't have
treated me so badly. Didn't you
want to see me just a little bit — out
of curiosity?"

"Oh, I was visiting some school
friends who said it would be atro-
cious to bother you, and the news-
papers were full of interesting de-
tails about your being so busy that
you ate and got shaved at the
theatre. Then one's time isn't one's
own when one is visiting, you
know." She saw the hurt expres-
sion on his face and repented, add-

240

THE TREASURE OF FAR ISLAND

ing gayly, "But I may as well con-
fess that I kept a sharp lookout for
you on the street, and when I did
meet you you didn't know me."

"And you didn't stop me? That's
worse yet. How in Heaven's name
was I to know you? Accost a god-
dess and say, 'Oh yes, you used to
be a Pirate Chief and wear a butcher
knife in your belt.' But I hadn't
grown into an Apollo, save the
mark ! and you knew me well
enough. I couldn't have passed
you like that in a strange land."

"No, you do your duty by your
countrymen, Douglass. You haven't
grown haughty. One by one our
old townspeople go out to see the
world and bring us back tales of
your glory. What unpromising
specimens have you not dined and
wined in New York ! Why even old
Skin Jackson, when he went to New
York to have his eyes treated, you
took to the Waldorf and to the
Players' Club, where he drank with
the Immortals. How do you have
the courage to do it? Did he wear
those dreadful gold nugget shirt
studs that he dug up in Colorado
when we were young?"

"Even the same, Margie, and he
scored a hit with them. But you
are dodging the point. When and
where did you see me in New
York?"

"Oh, it was one evening when
you were crossing Madison Square.
You were probably going to the
theatre for Flashingham and Miss
Grew were with you and you
seemed in a hurry." Margie wished
now that she had not mentioned the
incident. "I remember that was the
time I so deeply offended your

mother on my return by telling her
that Miss Grew had announced her
engagement to you. How did it
come out? She certainly did an-
nounce it."

"Doubtless, but it was entirely a
misunderstanding on the lady's
part. We never were anything of
the sort," said Douglass impatient-
ly. "That is a disgusting habit of
Edith's ; she announces a new en-
gagement every fortnight as me-
chanically as the butler announces
dinner. About once a month she
calls the dear Twelfth Night girls
together to a solemn high tea and
gently breaks the news of a new en-
gagement, and they kiss and cry
over her and say the things they
have said a dozen times before and
go away tittering. Why she has
been engaged to every society chap
in New York and to the whole Mil-
ton family, with the possible excep-
tion of Sir Henry, and her papa has
cabled his blessing all over the
known world to her. But it is a
waste of time to talk about such
nonsense ; don't let's," he urged.

"I think it is very interesting; I
don't indulge in weekly engagements
myself. But there is one thing I do
want to know, Douglass ; I want to
know how you did it."

"Did what?"

Margie threw out her hands with
an impetuous gesture. "Oh, all of I
it, all the wonderful things you have ;
done. You remember that night j
when we lay on the sand bar — "

"The Uttermost Desert," inter-
rupted Douglass softly.

"Yes, the Uttermost Desert, and
in the light of the driftwood fire we
planned the conquest of the world?

THE TREASURE OF FAR ISLAND

241

Well, other people plan, too, and
fight and suffer and fail the world
over, and a very few succeed at the
bitter end when they are old and
it is no longer worth while. But
you have done it as they used to
do it in the fairy tales, without soil-
ing your golden armor, and I can't
find one line in your face to tell me
that you have suffered or found life
bitter to your tongue. . How have
you cheated fate?"

Douglass looked about him and
saw that the guests had thronged
about the punchbowl, and his
mother, beaming in her new black
satin, was relating touching inci-
dents of his infancy to a group of
old ladies. He leaned " forward,
clasped his hands 'between his knees,
and launched into an animated de-
scription of how his first play, writ-
ten at college, had taken the fancy
of an old school friend of his father's
who had turned manager. The
second, a political farce, had put
him fairly on his feet. Then fol-
lowed his historical drama, "Lord
Fairfax," in which he had at first
failed completely. He told her
of those desperate days in New
York when he would draw his
blinds and work by lamplight until
he was utterly exhausted, of how
he fell ill and lost the thread of his
play and used to wander about the
streets trying to beat it out of the
paving stones when the very police-
men who jostled him on the cross-
ings knew more about "Lord Fair-
fax" than he.

As he talked he felt the old sense
of power, lost for many years ; the
power of conveying himself wholly
to her in speech, of awakening in

her mind every tint and shadow and
vague association that was in his at
the moment. He quite forgot the
beauty of the woman beside him in
the exultant realization of comrade-
ship, the egoistic satisfaction of be-
ing wholly understood. Suddenly
he stopped short.

"Come, Margie, you're not play-
ing fair, you're telling me nothing
about yourself. What plays have
you been playing? Pirate or en-
chanted princess or sleeping beauty
or Helen of Troy, to the disaster of
men ?"

Margie sighed as she awoke out
of the fairyland. Doug's tales were
as wonderful as ever.

"Oh, I stopped playing long ago.
I have grown up and you have not.
Some one has said that is wherein
geniuses are different; they go on
playing and never grow up. So you
see you're only a case of arrested
development, after all."

"I don't believe it, you play still,
I can see it in your eyes. And don't
say genius to me. People say that
to me only when they want to be
disagreeable or tell me- how they
would have written my plays. The
word is my bogie. But tell me, are
the cat-tails ripe in the Salt Marshes,
and will your mother let you wade
if the sun is warm, and do the winds
still smell sharp with salt when they
blow through the mists at night?"

"Why, Douglass, did the wind al-
ways smell salty to you there too?
It does to me yet, and you know
there isn't a particle of salt there.
Why did we ever name them the
Salt Marshes?"

"Because they zvcre the Salt
Marshes and couldn't have had anv

242

THE TREASURE OF FAR ISLAND

other name any more than the Far
Island could. I went down to those
pestiferous Maremme marshes in
Italy to see whether they would
be as real as our marshes, but
they were not real at all ; only miles
and miles of bog. And do the
nightingales still sing in the
grove ?"

"Yes. Other people call them
ring doves — but they still sing
there."

"And you still call them nightin-
gales to yourself and laugh at the
density of big people?"

"Yes, sometimes."

Later in the evening Douglass
found another opportunity, and this
time he was fortunate enough to en-
counter Margie alone as she was
crossing the veranda.

"Do you know why I have come
home in June, instead of July as I
had intended, Margie? Well, sit
down and let me tell you. They
don't need you in there just now.
About a month ago I changed my
apartment in New York, and as I
was sorting over my traps I came
across a box of childish souvenirs.
Among them was a faded bit of
paper on which a map was drawn
with elaborate care. It was the map
of an island with curly blue lines
all around it to represent water,
such as we used always to draw
around the continents in our geog-
raphy class. On the west coast of
the island a red sword was sticking
upright in the earth. Beneath this
scientific drawing was an inscrip-
tion to the effect that 'whoso should
dig twelve paces west of the huge fallen
tree, in direct line with the path made
by the setting sun on the water on the

tenth day of June, shovdd find the great
treasure and his heart's desire!' "

Margie laughed and applauded
gently with her hands. "And so
you have come to dig for it ; come
two thousand miles almost. There's
a dramatic situation for you. I
have my map still, and I've often
contemplated going down to Far
Island and digging, but it wouldn't
have been fair, for the treasure was
really yours, after all."

"Well, you are going now, and
on the tenth day of June, that's next
Friday, for that's what I came home
for, and I had to spoil the plans and
temper of a manager and all his
company to do it."

"Nonsense, there are too many
mosquitoes on Far Island and I
mind them more than I used to.
Besides there are no good boats like
the Jolly Rodger nowadays."

"We'll go if I have to build an-
other Jolly Rodger. You can't make
me believe you are afraid of mos-
quitoes. I know too well the mettle
of your pasture. Please do, Margie,
please." He used his old insidious
coaxing tone.

"Douglass, you have made me do
dreadful things enough by using
that tone of voice to me. I 'believe
you used to hypnotize me. Will you
never, never grow up?"

"Never so long as there are
pirate's treasures to dig for and you
will play with me, Margie. Oh, I
wish I had some of the cake that
Alice ate in Wonderland and could
make you a little girl again."

That night, after the household
was asleep, Douglass went out for
a walk about the old town, treading
the ways he had trod when he was a

THE TREASURE OF FAR ISLAND

243

founder of cities and a leader of
hosts. But he saw few of the old
landmarks, for the blaze of Etruscan
gold was in his eyes, and he felt as
a man might feel who in some
sleepy humdrum Italian village had
unearthed a new marble goddess, as
beautiful as she of Milo; and he felt
as a boy might feel who had lost
all his favorite marbles and his best
pea shooter and the dog that slept
with him, and had found them all
again. He tried to follow, step by
step, the wonderful friendship of his
childhood.

A child's normal attitude toward
the world is that of the artist, pure
and simple. The rest of us have to
do with the solids of this world,
whereas only their form and color
exist for the painter. So, in every
wood and street and building there
are things, not seen of older people
at all, which make up their whole
desirableness or objectionableness to
children. There are maps and pic-
tures formed by cracks in the walls
of bare and unsightly sleeping
chambers which make them beauti-
ful; smooth places on the lawn
where the grass is greener than any-
where else and which are good to
sit upon; trees which are valuable
by reason of the peculiar way in
which the branches grow,, and cer-
tain spots under the scrub willows
along the creek which are in a man-
ner sacred, like the sacrificial groves
of the Druids, so that a boy is al-
most afraid to walk there. Then
there are certain carpets which are
more beautiful than others, because
with a very little help from the
imagination they become the rose
garden of the Thousand and One

Nights ; and certain couches which
are peculiarly adapted for playing
Sindbad in his days of ease, after the
toilsome voyages were over. A
child's standard of value is so entire-
ly his own, and his peculiar part and
possessions in the material objects
around him are so different from
those of his elders, that it may be
said his rights are granted by a dif-
ferent lease. To these two children
the entire external world, like the
people who dwelt in it, had been
valued solely for what they sug-
gested to the imagination, and peo-
ple and places alike were merely
stage properties, contributing more
or less to the intensity of their inner
life.

II.

"Green leaves a-floating
Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating
When will all come home?"

Sang Douglass as they pulled
from the mill wharf out into the
rapid current of the river, which
that morning seemed the most beau-
tiful and noble of rivers, an en-
chanted river flowing peacefully out
of Arcady with the Happy Isles
somewhere in the distance. The
ripples were touched with silver and
the sky was as blue as though it
had just been made to-day; the cow
bells sounded faintly from the
meadows along the shore like the
bells of fairy cities ringing on the
day the prince errant brought home
his bride; the meadows that sloped
to the water's edge were the green-
est in all the world because they
were the meadows of the long ago;
and the flowers that grew there

244

THE TREASURE OF FAR ISLAND

were the freshest and sweetest of
growing things 'because once, long
ago in the golden age, two children
had gathered other flowers like
them, and the beauties of vanished
summers were everywhere. Doug-
lass sat in the end of the boat, his
back to the sun and his straw hat
tilted back on his head, pulling
slowly and feeling that the day was
fine rather than seeing it ; for his
eyes were fixed upon his helmsman
in the other end of the boat, who
sat with her hat in her lap, shading
her face with a white parasol, and
her wonderful hair piled high on her
head like a helmet of gleaming
bronze'.

Of all the possessions of their
childhood's Wonderland, Far Island
had been dearest ; it was graven on
their hearts as Calais was upon
Mary Tudor's. Long before they
had set foot upon it the island was
the goal of their loftiest ambitions
and most delightful imaginings.
They had wondered what trees grew
there and what delightful spots were
hidden away under the matted grape-
vines. They had even decided that
a race of kindly dwarfs must inhabit
it and had built up a civilization and
historic annals for these imaginary
inhabitants, surrounding the sand
bar with all the mystery and en-
chantment which was attributed to
certain islands of the sea by the
mariners of Greece. Douglass and
Margie had sometimes found it ex-
pedient to admit other children into
their world, but for the most part
these were but hewers of wood and
drawers of water, who helped to
shift the scenery and construct the
balcony and place the king's throne,

and were no more in the atmosphere
of the play than were the supers
who watched Mr. Keane's famous
duel with Richmond. Indeed Doug-
lass frequently selected the younger
and more passive boys for his vas-
sals on the principle that they did
as they were bid and made no
trouble. But there is something of
the explorer in the least imaginative
of boys, and when Douglass came
to the building of his famous boat,
the Jolly Rodger, he found willing
hands to help him. Indeed the saw-
ing and hammering, the shavings
and cut fingers and blood blisters
fell chiefly to the lot of dazzled lads
who claimed no part in the craft,
and who gladly trotted and sweated
for their board and keep in this fas-
cinating play world which was so
much more exhilarating than any
they could make for themselves.

"Think of it, Margie, we are
really going back to the island after
so many years, just you and I, the
captain and his mate. Where are
the other gallant lads that sailed
with us then?"

"Where are the snows of yester'
year?" sighed Margie softly. "It is
very sad to grow up."

"Sad for them, yes. But we have
never grown up, you know, we have
only grown more considerate of our
complexions," nodding at the para-
sol. "What a little mass of freckles
you used to be, but I liked you
freckled, too. Let me see : old Temp
is commanding a regiment in the
Philippines, and Bake has a cattle
ranch in Wyoming, Mac is a gov-
ernment clerk in Washington, Jim
keeps his father's hardware store,
poor Ned and Shorty went down in

THE TREASURE OF FAR ISLAND

245

a catboat on the Hudson while they
were at college (I went out to hunt
for the bodies, you know), and old
Rhine is selling sewing machines;
he never did get away at all, did
he?"

"No, not for any length of time.
You know it used to frighten Rhine
to go to the next town to see a cir-
cus. He went to Arizona once for
his lungs, but his family, never could
tell where he was for he headed all
his letters 'Empire City, Nebraska,'
from habit."

"Oh, that's delightful, Margie, you
must let me use that. Rhine would
carry Empire City through Europe
with him and never know he was
out of it. Have I told you about
Pagie? Well, you know Pagie is
travelling for a New York tailoring
house and I let his people make
some clothes for me that I had to
give to Flashingham's valet. When
he first came to town he tried to be
gay, with his fond mother's prayers
still about him, a visible nimbus,
and the Sunday school boy written
all' over his open countenance and
downy lip and large, white butter
teeth. But I know, at heart, he still
detested naughty words and whis-
key made him sick. One day I was
standing at the Hoffman House bar
with some fellows, when- a slender
youth, who looked like a nice girl
masquerading as a rake, stepped up
and ordered a claret and seltzer.
The whine was unmistakable. I
turned and said, even before I had
looked at him squarely, 'Oh, Pagie!
if your mother saw you here !' "

"Poor Pagie ! I'll warrant * he
would rather have had bread and
sugar. Do you remember how, at

the Sunday school concerts on
Children's Day, you and Pagie and
Shorty and Temp used to stand in a
row behind the flower wreathed pul-
pit rail, all in your new round-about
suits with large silk bows tied under
your collars, your hands behind you,
and assure us with sonorous voices
that you would come rejoicing
bringing in the sheaves? Somehow,
even then, I never doubted that you
would do it."

The keel grated on the sand and
Douglass sprang ashore and gave
her his hand.

"Descend, Oh, Miranda, upon
your island ! Do you know, Margie,
it makes me seem fifteen again to
feel this sand crunching under my
feet. I wonder if I ever again shall
feel such a thrill of triumph as I felt
when I first leaped upon this sand
bar? None of my first nights have
given me anything like it. Do you re-
member really, and did you feel the
same?"

"Of course I remember, and I
knew that you were playing a
double role that day, and that you
were really the trail-breaker and
world-finder inside of the pirate all
the while. Here are the same ripple
marks on the Silvery Beaches, and
here is the great arched tree, let's
run for it." She started fleetly
across the glittering sand and Doug-
lass fell behind to watch with im-
moderate joy that splendid, gener-
ous body that governed itself so
well in the open air. There was a
wholesomeness of the sun and soil
in her that was utterly lacking in
the women among whom he had
lived for so long. She had pre-
served that strength of arm and

246

THE TREASURE OF FAR ISLAND

freedom of limb that had made her
so fine a playfellow, and which
modern modes of life have well-nigh
robbed the world of altogether.
Surely, he thought, it was like that
that Diana's women sped after the
stag down the slopes of Ida, with
shouting and bright spear. She
caught an overhanging branch and
swung herself upon the embank-
ment and, leaning against the trunk
of a tree, awaited him flushed and
panting, her bosom rising and fall-
ing with her quick drawn breaths.
"Why did you close the tree be-
hind you, Margie? I have always
wanted to see just how Dryads keep
house," he exclaimed, brushing
away a dried leaf that had fallen on
her shoulder.

"Don't strain your inventive pow-
ers to make compliments, Douglass ;
this is your vacation and you are
to rest your imagination. See, the
willows have scarcely grown at all.
I'm sure we shall hear Pagie whim-
pering over there on the Uttermost
Desert where we marooned him, or
singing hymns to keep up his cour-
age. Now for the Huge Fallen Tree.
Do you suppose the floods have
moved it?"

They struck through the dense,
willow thicket, matted with fra-
grant wild grapevines which Doug-
lass beat down with his spade, and
came upon the great white log, the
bleached skeleton of a tree, and
found the cross hacked upon it, the
rough gashes of the hatchet now
worn smooth by the wind and rain
and the seething of spring freshets.
Near the cross were cut the initials
of the entire pirate crew; some of
them were cut on gravestones now.

The scrub willows had grown over
the spot where they had decided the
treasure must lie, and together they
set to work to break them away.
Douglass paused more than once to
watch the strong young creature be-
side him, outlined against the ten-
der green foliage, reaching high and
low and snapping the withes where
they were weakest. He was still
wondering whether it was not all a
dream picture, and was half afraid
that his man would call him to tell
him that some piqued and faded
woman was awaiting him at the the-
atre to quarrel about her part.

"Still averse to manual labor,
Douglass?" she laughed as she
turned to bend a tall sapling. "The
most remarkable thing about your
enthusiasm was that you had only
to sing of the glories of toil to make
other people do all the work for
you."

"No, Margie, I was thinking very
hard indeed — about the Thracian
women when they broke the boughs
wherewith they flayed unhappy
Orpheus."

"Now, Douglass, you'll spoil the
play. A sentimental pirate is impossi-
ble. Pagie was a sentimental pirate
and that was what spoiled him. A
little more of this and I will maroon
you upon the Uttermost Desert."

Douglass laughed and settled him-
self back among the green boughs
and gazed at her with the aban-
doned admiration of an artist con-
templating a masterpiece.

When they came to the digging
of the treasure a little exertion was
enough to unearth what had seemed
hidden so fabulously deep in olden
time. The chest was rotten and fell

THE TREASURE OF FAR ISLAND

247

apart as the spade struck it, but the
glass jar was intact, covered with
sand and slime. Douglass spread
his handkerchief upon the sand and
weighted the corners down with
pebbles and upon it poured the
treasure of Far Island. There was
the manuscript written in blood, a
confession of fantastic crimes, and
the Spaniard's heart in a bottle of
alcohol, and Temp's Confederate
bank notes, damp and grewsome to
the touch, and Pagie's rare tobacco
tags, their brilliant colors faded en-
tirely away, and poor Shorty's bars
. of tinfoil, dull and eaten with rust.
"And, Douglass," cried Margie,
"there is your father's silver ring
that was made from a nugget; he
whipped you for burying it. You
remember it was given to a Chris-
tian knight by an English queen,
and when he was slain before Jeru-
salem a Saracen took it and we
killed the Saracen in the desert and
cut off his finger to get the ring.
It is strange how those wild im-
aginings of ours seem, in retrospect,
realities, things that I actually lived
through. I suppose that in cold fact
my life was a good deal like that of
other little girls who grow up in a
village; but whenever I look back
on it, it is all exultation and ro-
mance,— sea fights and splendid gal-
leys and Roman triumphs and bril-
liant caravans winding through the
desert."

"To people who live by imagina-
tion at all, that is the only life that
goes deep enough to leave memo-
ries. We were artists in those days,
creating for the day only;* making
epics sung once and then forgotten,
building empires that set with the

sun. Nobody worked for money
then, and nobody worked for fame,
but only for the joy of the doing.
Keats said the same thing more ele-
gantly in his May Day Ode, and we
were not so unlike those Hellenic
poets who were content to sing to
the shepherds and forget and be for-
gotten, 'rich in the simple worship of
a day.' "

"Why, Douglass," she cried as
she bent her face down to the little
glass jar, "it was really our child-
hood that we buried here, never
guessing what a precious thing we
were putting under the ground.
That was the real treasure of Far
Island, and we might dig up the
whole island for it but all the king's
horses and all the king's men could
not bring it back to us. That voy-
age we made to bury our trinkets,
just before you went away Lo
school, seems like unconscious sym-
bolism, and somehow it stands out
from all the other good times we
knew then as the happiest of all."
She looked off where the setting
sun hung low above the water."

"Shall I tell you why, Margie?
That was the end of our childhood,
and there the golden days died in a
blaze of glory, passed in music out
of sight. That night, after our boat
had drifted away from us, when we
had to wade down the river hand in
hand, we two, and the noises and
the coldness of the water frightened
us, and there were quicksands and
sharp rocks and deep holes to shun,
and terrible things lurking in the
woods on the shore, you cried in a
different way from the way you
sometimes cried when you hurt
yourself, and I found that I loved

248

THE TREASURE OF FAR ISLAND

you afraid better than I had ever loved
you fearless, and in that moment we
grew up, and shut the gates of Eden
behind us, and our empire was at
an end."

"And now we are only kings in
exile," sighed Margie, softly, "who
wander back to look down from the
mountain tops upon the happy land
we used to rule."

Douglass took her hand gently ;
"If there is to be any Eden on earth
again for us, dear, we must make it
with our two hearts."

There was a sudden brightness of
tears in her eyes, and she drew
away from him. "Ah, Douglass,
you are determined to spoil it all.
It is you who have grown up and
taken on the ways of the world.
The play is at an end for me." She
tried to rise, but he held her firmly.

"From the moment I looked into
your eyes in the vestibule that night
we have been parts of the same
dream again. Why, Margie, we
have more romance behind us than
most men and women ever live."

Margie's face grew whiter, but
she pushed his hand away and the
look in her eyes grew harder.
"This is only a new play, Douglass,
and you will weary of it to-morrow.
I am not so good at playing as I
used to be. I am no longer content
with the simple worship of a day."

In her touch, in her white face,
he divined the greatness of what she
had to give. He bit his lip and an-
swered, "I think you owe me more
confidence than that, if only for the
sake of those days when we trusted
each other entirely."

She turned with a quick flash of
remorseful tenderness, as she used

to do when she hurt him at play.
"I only want to keep you from hurt-
ing us both, Douglass. We neither
of us could go on feeling like this.
It's only the dregs of the old en-
chantment. Things have always
come easily to you, I know, for at
your birth nature and fortune joined
to make you great. But they do not
come so to me ; I should wake and
weep."

"Then weep, my princess, for I
will wake you now !"

The fire and fancy that had so be-
witched her girlhood that no other
man had been able to dim the mem-
ory of it came furiously back upon
her, with arms that were new and
strange and strong, and with ten-
derness stranger still in this wild
fellow of dreams and jests; and all
her vows never to grace another of
his Roman triumphs were forgot-
ten.

"You are right, Margie; the pi-
rate play is ended and the time has
come to divide the prizes, and I
choose what I chose fifteen years
ago. Out of the spoils of a lifetime
of crime and bloodshed I claimed
only the captive princess, and I
claim her still. I have sought the
world over for her, only to find her
at last in the land of lost content."

Margie lifted her face from his
shoulder, and, after the manner of
women of her kind, she played her
last card rhapsodically. "And she,
O Douglass ! the years she has
waited have been longer than the
waiting of Penelope, and she has
woven a thousand webs of dreams
by night and torn them asunder by
day, and looked out across the Salt
Marshes for the night train, and still

SURVIVAL

249

you did not come. I was only your
pensioner like Shorty and Temp
and the rest, and I could not play
anything alone. You took my world
with you when you went and left
me only a village of mud huts and
my loneliness."

As her eyes and then her lips met
his in the dying light, he knew that
she had caught the spirit of the play,
and that she would ford the river by
night with him again and never be
afraid.

The locust chirped in the thicket ;
the setting sun threw a track of
flame across the water; the willows
burned with fire and were not con-
sumed ; a glory was upon the sand
and the river and upon the Silvery

Beaches; and these two looked
about over God's world and saw
that it was good. In the western
sky the palaces of crystal and gold
were quenched in night, like the
cities of old empires ; and out of the
east rose the same moon that has
glorified all the romances of the
world, — that lighted Paris over the
blue iEgean and the feet of young
Montague to the Capulets' orchard.
The dinner hour in Empire City was
long past, but the two upon the
island wist naught of these things,
for they had become as the gods,
who dwell in their golden houses,
recking little of the woes and labors
of mortals, neither heeding any fall
of rain or snow.

Survival

By Charlotte Becker

I THINK if I were in a desert place,
Beyond all sight or sound of human bliss,
My fate were lighter to endure than this —
This watching life and love grow on apace
In others' eyes, when mine would strain through space
To seek the look I may not know again —
This answering to others' jests, when pain
Commands I wear a mask before mv face.

Ah, far away within the happy past,
I had no prescience of the endless days
Of those who walk uncomforted through ways

Where other lives pass joyful; nor the vast
Grim loneliness that naught may reconcile
For one whose grief lies hid behind a smile !

&&&'

•T*1*

The Mayflower

The Tourist and the Native

By Ethel Hobart

Illustrated from Photographs by James Mills

M I on the right way to the
Rock?" asked she. "My
sakes, ain't it hot !"

I was standing at the
opening in the fence on Water Street,
just below Chilton, with a pitcher of
spring water in my hand, when the
Tourist came along from the ten
o'clock train. She was large and ar-
rayed in hot black, with a handkerchief
tucked into her collar. She had a
Boston bag and a red guidebook. 1
knew her : I had seen her type before.

"Have some," said I, "you can drink
right out of the pitcher."
250

She drank gratefully, then wanted
to know where such good water came
from.

"I'll show you," I said ; and she
followed me down the steps to the
spring.

"Well," said she, sitting down
heavily on the wooden box that covers
the pipe from which the water flows,
"them kids seem to be having a good
time ! So near the sea — ain't it a
wonder it don't taste salty at all."

I said it was, and explained to her
that sometimes in winter, when the
tides ran high, the spring was actually
covered by the sea. And I told her

THE TOURIST AND THE NATIVE

251

that the shore has many such springs ;
they say that is one reason why the
Pilgrims stayed on our forbidding
coast. The Tourist, at the word "Pil-
grim," wearily pricked up her ears, as
though suddenly remembering what
she was there for.

"I want to know!" said she, fanning
herself with her lemon-colored time-
table.

"Yes," I said, "there's the Elder
Brewster spring, for instance, in the
centre of the town. And in Governor
Bradford's history — "

"I'm goin' to read that when I get
back," said she.

"In Governor Bradford's history it
speaks of the exceeding number of
springs of clear, sweet water," I went
on, feeling like the red guidebook.

"I'm coolin' off fine," remarked the
Tourist contentedly. "You a native?"

I admitted it.

"You mean you live here all
winter ?"

f said I did.

"Ain't it dreadful lonesome?" said
she.

I laughed.

Them Kids

The Spring

"No," I said.

"I come from Michigan," she stated
combatively, as though she expected
me to contradict her.

"Yes?" I said.

"What's that factory?" said the
Tourist.

I told her.

"What's that out there?" she said,
looking across the blue bay, and be-
yond the gleaming white beach.

"With the trees?" I said. "That's
Clark's Island, where the Pilgrims
are said to have spent their first Sun-
day."

"Oh!" said she.

She began to get to her feet.

"How far is the Rock?" she asked.

I explained that it was but a few
moments' walk straight along the
road.

252

THE TOURIST AND THE NATIVE

'////IT —

The Brewster Spring

"Where do tourists generally eat?"

"Generally?" I said. "Well, gener-
ally they bring hard boiled eggs in
shoe boxes, and eat on our banking.
Then they leave the boxes and shells
with us," I remarked.

But the Tourist was pondering.

"Never once thought of bringing
my lunch," said she. "And I might
have, just as well as not."

I told her of a restaurant where she
could go, and suggested that she could
"do" the Rock and the Hall before
lunch.

"Memorial Hall?"

"Yes, Pilgrim Hall," I said.

"How much?"

"Twenty-five cents," I replied.

"I like to know beforehand," said
she.

"So do I," I said. "Aren't you
tired?"

"Me?" she answered. "Land, no!

I did Concord, Monday; and Boston,
Tuesday; and this to-day; and to-
morrow I'm going to Salem. There,"
she said, taking a last drink from
the pitcher, "nothing better than
good water / say. Pleased to have
met you. Good day."

"Good-by," I murmured.

I watched her for a moment, lum-
bering, indomitable and serene, along
the dusty, glaring road to the Rock.

II.

Instead of seeing through tourists'
eyes, and knowing through the fact-
bound medium of a guidebook, it is
a great privilege to absorb through
one's daily life the historic atmosphere
of the town. It is an unconscious
process ; you hardly realize, until after
you have left it, that Pilgrim memories
have quietly, imperceptibly merged
themselves into your feeling for
Plymouth.

But we children, little Pilgrim de-

Pilgrim Hall

The Rock

253

Ye Olde Towne Brooke

scendants, all of us, what did we care?
We played among the curious old
stones on Burial Hill, and the brave
ones among us coasted down its steep
sides. We played, too, by ye olde
Towne Brooke; we drank through
long dandelion stems from the springs
along the shore. But I must confess,
that thinking of those springs, my
memory dwells not on their Pilgrim
associations first of all. It is the bitter
taste of the dandelion stem that comes
back to me, and the feeling of the
damp, cool grass against my face. It
is our joy in the "fairy boats" the
bubbles made, that I remember, as the
water came up through the sand, in
the bottom of the moss-grown, sunken
barrel.
254

We wandered into Pilgrim Hall
sometimes, to get a drink of ice water
from the cooler in the basement. If
we were not caught at it, we would
run across the broad, baie iloors,
and shout a little that we might
hear the echoes.

What were Pilgrim memories to
us? And yet, unconscious as we
were, a childhood in Plymouth is
not quite like any other. And
though Plymouth calls you back to
it, as any native town must do,
there is a something added to the
natural home feeling. The wooded
hills and the sea come back to your
memory. You think of the gleam of
the white dunes of the beach. You
dream of the suffused pink light on

Inside Pilgrim Hall

Clark's Island at sunset time. And
then, inconsequently enough, you
think of the queer little alley with
its steps, in the very heart of the
town. Absurd names like "Jabez
Corner," and "Jumping Hill" come
again to your recollection. You
would not if you could, perhaps, slip
back into the tranquil, limited life.
And yet, how gladly would you
roam through the 'bare woods in
April, just for one day, to push
aside dead leaves, and find the
arbutus. You remember the spot
where grew the pinkest of the pink.
It was on the Manomet road over
the Pine Hills, just before you turn
into the path that leads to. Cleft
Rock.

But to your feeling about the

country, just the home feeling, there
is added, unconsciously perhaps,
that intangible a-tmosphere of gath-
ered associations. You cannot but
compare the country as you know
and love it, with that earlier, wilder
one. It is not historical interest; it
is rather a certain fellow feeling;
the very smell of the sea, and the
saltiness of the breezes you share
with your Pilgrim townspeople.

For instance, one can hardly
stroll in the sunshine about the
Burial Hill behind the town, among
the grotesque cherubs on the old
slate stones, without unconsciously
going back more than two hundred
years. As far as you can see, the
town straggles north and south
along the water front. Inland are

255

256

THE TOURIST AND THE NATIVE.

Queer Little Alley
rolling-, grassy hills. To your right,
the noble Manomet headland juts

straight out into the sea. Before
you over the clustering roofs of the
town, and the tops of the elms, you
can see the harbor shining bright
and blue in the morning sunshine,
as it nestles in the long arm of the
beach. Beyond, you see the Gurnet,
and the outside ocean. Your
mind unconsciously drifts away
from the mere loveliness of the
view ; the country begins to' mean
for you the courage, the vital cour-
age of those Pilgrim wanderers.
Historic associations are imper-
sonal and far removed, but a cour-
age like that, only accented by the
intervening years, comes to your
own experience with an unexpected
thrill. In your heart you know that
you would have turned back a hun-
dred times. Alas ! is there anything
for which we would brave, not only
privation and death, but that cease-
less, aching homesickness for sunny
fields and English lanes? It helps
one to understand a little, to live
one's daily life among such memo-
ries ; it is good to be "native-born."

Wfrdiiim #i

Clustering Roofs of the Town

FROM A PHOTOGRAVURE PUBLISHED BY A. w. ELSON & CO., BOSTON

George Washington

From the Athenseum Portrait by Gilbert Stuart

New England Magazine

New Series

NOVEMBER, 1902

VOL. XXVII NO. 3

Washington and the Town He Loved

So Well

Bv Alexander Cameron

MIDWAY between Washing-
ton and Mount Vernon
there lies a little town, so
quaint, so charming, so
historical, that to wander along its
broad streets lined with fine old trees,
to view its grass-grown cobblestones
of prodigious size, and its many build-
ings of Revolutionary antiquity, is to
touch once more the life of the eight-
eenth century, is to walk again in a
past rich with associations. For this
is the little city George Washington
most loved, the place whose mili-
tary, social, civil* and commercial in-
terests he did most to further and for
whom Lafayette offered his famous
toast:— "The City of Alexandria:
May her prosperity and happiness

more and more realize the fondest
wishes of our venerated Washing-
ton."

The first we hear of the spot is
when Captain John Smith landed, in
1608, on his way to discover a passage
to the East Indies and far Cathay.
Nine days he lingered with the friend-
ly Indians, before he continued his
voyage of discovery, only to be turned
back by the Falls of the Potomac. A
silence falls until October, 1669, when
a colonial land patent was issued to
Captain Robert Howsen, who, one
month later, sold it to John Alexander
for six hogsheads of tobacco, — rather
a hard bargain for the former hunting
grounds of the Toag Indians, com-
prising six thousand acres of land and

259

Mount Vernon

nine miles of river front on the Pow-
tow-mak !

In 1677 some settlers were sent to
occupy, for a short time, the new pos-
sessions, but not until 1730, two years
before Washington was born and one
year before his half-brother Lawrence
founded the estate of Mount Vernon,
did the little community of Belle
Haven, as it was then called, spring
into existence, with its one great ware-
house of Oronoko tobacco and its one
thoroughfare called Oronoco Street.
Soon three beautiful homes were built
within easy riding distance of the
other, — Mount Vernon, the home of
the Washingtons, Belvoir, the resi-
dence of William Fairfax, who was
acting in behalf of his cousin, Lord
Fairfax, and the Carlyle house at Belle
Haven.

It is not strange that Belle Haven
should have been so beloved by Wash-
ington, since the two grew up together.
The little hamlet merged into a vil-
260

lage, as the child, familiar with every !
portion of the place, developed into
manhood, and at the age of sixteen 1
was proud to assist in surveying and
laying out the town, to which a new
name was to be given. A most beau-
tiful haven it had been to those early
settlers, but now it was to assume more
progress, more activity, and as the
House of Burgesses authorized it to be
formed into a town, so it authorized
it to be known in future as Alexan-
dria, in honor of the descendants of
John Alexander, Earl of Stirling. As
the town had been named in deference
to the Earl, dead now for many a long
day, so it was deemed proper to show
full appreciation of the present gen-
tleman of title, Thomas, the sixth Lord
Fairfax and Baron of Cameron, who
had inherited through his mother, the
daughter of the late Lord Colepepper,
the vast estate of five million acres
known as the "Northern Neck," com-
prising all the land lying between the

THE TOWN WASHINGTON LOVED

261

Rappahannock and the Potomac. He
was one of whom the Alexandrians
might well be proud; a man of irre-
proachable character, a fine scholar,
with the true Englishman's love of the
chase, courteous and dignified, he was
beloved and honored by all. In 1747
he left England to settle in Virginia ;
in 1749 he was elected one of the first
trustees of the town, for he had be-
come much attached to the people,
making their interests his. Therefore,
the principal street running from eas»t
to west was called Cameron, to the
south of which the streets were to be
known as King, Prince, Duke ; to the
north, as Queen, Princess and Duch-
ess, afterwards changed to Oronoco.
The two streets to cross these at right
angles and parallel with the Potomac
were Fairfax Street and Princess Roy-

al. Thus with a desire to do honor to
her most prominent men and with lov-
ing thoughts of loyalty to the mother
country, the royal titles were adopted,
and are still retained ; and nowhere
throughout the colonies could his Maj-
esty find more enthusiastic subjects
than in this little community, where
even the streets bore testimony of the
homage and affection which were of-
fered with the heartiest good will.

Her chief hostelry, where centered
all the life and bustle of the town, was
called the "Royal George ;" it was the
booking-place for the northern mail, —
the connecting link, as it were, between
the North and South, and the arrival
and departure of that mail was quite
the event of the day. Later on, in
Revolutionary times, the "Royal
-George" became a recruiting station

From a negative by Leet Bros, loaned by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association

The Garden at Mount Vernon

262

THE. TOWN WASHINGTON LOVED

Ss^fP^**^

Entrance to Old Fort on which Carlyle
House is Built

for soldiers to enlist against His Maj-
esty, the King.

The most imposing residence the
town possessed was, of course, the one
John S. Carlyle had erected in 1732,
constructed of Portland stone shipped
from the Isle of Wight in exchange
for the famous Oronoko tobacco. The
house was well situated, — in the rear
the lawn sloped down to the Potomac
and on the portico one could sit and
watch the vessels, from over the seas,
glide into the haven that ever ap-
peared most beautiful, and in front,
like watchful sentinels, a double row
of Lombardy poplars kept guard over
the stately home, where hospitality was
offered with a lavish hand and where
good cheer and kindliness were ever
to be found. The woodwork of the
interior of the house is regarded as
the best specimen of colonial style ;
the windows, doorways, mantels, the

primitive cupboards, the heavy carved
frieze, even the chair-board are all in
exquisite taste. Here in the great
drawing-room of gold and white,
Washington was often to be seen tak-
ing part in the minuet and one could
catch a glimpse of the dainty room in
blue and white across the hall. But
there was another side to all this
brightness and gaiety, as the dungeons
of the house could testify, where in
times of attack by the Indians,
the household sought protection,
or by means of the subter-
ranean passage, as at Mount
Vernon, an escape was offered by way
of the Potomac, and the happy youths
in powdered wigs, beruffled shirts,
knee breeches and silk hose, who could
step with so light a heart in the dance,
could also draw their swords and fight
for the protection of their homes and
for the honor of their King.

The French and Indians were seri-
ously interfering with the commercial
interests of the prospering little town.
In February, 1752, fairs or markets
had been established and the Alexan-
drians were justly proud of this their
new enterprise and eager for its suc-
cess. By an act of the House of Bur-
gesses it was provided that two fairs
were to be held "annually on the last
Thursday in May and the last Thurs-
day in October, continuing two days.'*
Every one was- encouraged to bring
"cattle, victuals, provisions, goods,
wares & merchandizes whatsoever,"
and as an inducement, were exempt
from all "arrests or executions, except
for offences committed during the
time of the fair." But those living be-
yond the borders of the town were so
intimidated by the Indians that to
convey their produce to Alexandria

Carlyle House, Alexandria

263

264

THE TOWN WASHINGTON LOVED

became a hazardous, if not an impos-
sible task. Something must be done;
so on April 2, 1754, Washington, a
young man of twenty-two, led the first*
troop of soldiers, a valiant little band
of one hundred and fifty Alexandrians,
out for the protection of his people
and for the chastisement of the In-
dians, who were aided by the French.
Three months later, July 4th, he was
obliged to capitulate to the French at
Fort Necessity, but no disgrace was at-
tached to the surrender and he was
permitted to march out with the hon-
ors of war.

The next year England sent one of
her ablest generals to cope with the sit-
uation, to mature plans for the govern-
ment of the colonies and to establish
peace upon the borders. A gallant
troop of redcoats arrived in Alexan-
dria in 1755, and while doubtless the
"Royal George" and the new tavern
known as Gadsby's afforded enter-
tainment for many, yet Major Carlyle
with true Virginia hospitality urged
General Braddock to be his guest
throughout his stay in the colonies.
Summoned to meet him were the gov-
ernors of New York, Pennsylvania,
Maryland, Virginia and North Caro-
lina, a goodly company of men for the
little Virginia town to welcome and
loyally she strove to do honor to the
representatives of the King. While
doubtless the laugh and jest prevailed,
the latest court news was discussed,
and royal bumpers drunk to King
George and merry England, this coun-
cil also devised the plan of taxation for
the colonies which neither they nor
Parliament ever dreamed would result
in the Revolution.

After Braddock had disposed of this
part of his labor, he turned his atten-

tion to the wars with the French and
Indians. Desirous of securing all pos-
sible information and knowing of the
previous expedition under the guid-
ance of Washington, he sent to Mount
Vernon, requesting that young man to
appear before him. Washington
obeyed the summons and related his
experience of the manner in which the
Indians conducted their wars. Had
Braddock profited by these sugges-
tions his memorable defeat might
have been avoided, but he declined to
allow the English troops to adopt any
but English methods, yet he offered
Washington a military commission
with the title of major. These inter-
views converted the beautiful blue
room of the Carlyle house into a coun-
cil chamber of war.

With banners flying and with every
thought of success, except perhaps in
the mind of Washington, blithely the
red-coats and the few Virginians
marched out of the town over the
King's Highway, the first public post
road in the colonies. For them
it was only a path of glory
with no shadow of a thought that it
would lead so speedily to the grave,
and when ten weeks later Braddock
and so many of his English soldiers
lost their lives in that terrific struggle
at Monongahela, twenty-five of the
twenty-nine Alexandrians who went
forth to battle were left dead on the
field. Washington was the only officer
who survived. To use his own words :
"I had four bullets through my coat,
and two horses shot under me, yet es-
caped unhurt altho' death was levelling
my companions on every side of me."
Fighting desperately, he held his
ground until an Indian chief, who had
watched him with admiration, cried

THE TOWN WASHINGTON LOVED

265

"Fire at him no more. See ye not that
the Great Spirit protects that chief.
He cannot die in battle." Braddockhad
been mortally wounded on July 9th,
but he lingered four days and was
then buried at Great Meadows, near
Pittsburg", Washington reading over
the unfortunate General the beautiful
and impressive service for the burial
of the dead as provided for by the
Episcopal Church, of which they were
both members. It was stated in the
official record that "the Virginia offi-
cers and troops behaved like men and
died like soldiers." Thus England
gave them their full share of glory.

For the next twenty years Washing-
ton is to be seen a familiar figure in
the thriving little town, knowing ev-
ery one, welcomed everywhere. Of a
most social nature, he dearly loved
the dance and took a leading part in
the assemblies held at the "Royal
George." The toilets of the fair
ladies and their gallant escorts,
who trod the stately measure

Courtesy of W. H. Snowden*

Lafayette House

Courtesy of W. H. Snowden *

The Fairfax House

of the minuet, were of the richest
imported brocades and costliest vel-
vets, and the soft mellow light of the
tallow candles made the scene none
the less enchanting because the sconces
were made of tin, or, when tin was
lacking, native clay moulded into
shape to hold the candles. But
across the street the "Royal George '
encountered a new rival.

About 1752 Lord Fairfax had ship-
ped from England a large quantity of
brick, part of which was used to build
the new tavern known as Gadsby's,
and the old quarters at the "Royal
George" were discarded for the new,
as the fine ballroom with its polished
floor and gallery for the musicians
proved a greater favorite for dances
arid banquets. At both festivities
Washington was often to be seen, the
moving spirit and life of the assembly.

* His, Landmarks of Virginia and Maryland.

266

THE TOWN WASHINGTON LOVED

Courtesy of W. H. Snowden

The Old Lloyd House
In 1760 Washington gives a descrip-
tion in his diary of a ball he had at-
tended in Alexandria on Friday, Feb-
ruary 15th:

"Went to a Ball at Alexandria — where
Musick and Dancing was the chief enter-
tainment ; however in a convenient Room
detachd for the purpose abounded great
plenty of Bread and Butter, some Biscuits
with Tea & Coffee which the Drinkers of
could not distinguish from Hot water
sweetnd. Be it remembered that pocket
handkerchiefs servd the purposes of Table
Cloths & Napkins and that no Apologies
were made for either. The Proprietors of
this Ball were Messrs Carlyle Laurie &
Rob* Wilson but the Doctr not getting it
conducted agreeable to his own taste would
claim no share of the merit of it. I shall
therefore distinguish this Ball by the Stile
& title of the Bread & Butter Ball. We
lodgd at Col0 Carlyles."

Yet the balls continued with un-
abated zeal, and Washington, until
the last year of his life, honored them
with his presence.

Though Gadsby's became the lead-
ing place for social functions, yet the
"Royal George" was patronized when
Election Balls were held; these par-
took of a political nature. In this
manner the successful candidate
showed appreciation of the efforts of
his friends and at the same time
placated the adherents of his disap-

pointed opponent. Washington men-
tions in his diary attending one on
December 1, 1768:

"Went to the Election of Burgesses for
this county, & was then, with Col0 West
chosen. Stayed all night to a Ball wch 1
had given."

and again, on December 4, 1771 :

"Went up to the Election & the Ball I
had given at Alexa. Mr Crawford & Jn°
P. Custis with me. Stayd all Night."

The annual Birthnight Ball was ob-
served by the Alexandrians long be-
fore February twenty-second was
made a national holiday; and in
1798 Washington attended his own
Birthnight Ball at Gadsby's Tavern.
At present, in the city of Washington
on the night of each twenty-second of
February, the Daughters of the Amer-
ican Revolution hold a magnificent re-
ception, an annual tribute to the mem-
ory of the great national hero. Until
their new continental hall is built, the
Daughters have availed themselves of
the courtesy of the Board of Trustees
of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, where
of late the receptions have been given.
Under a blaze of electric light, with a
background of pictures and statuary,
and amid the most luxuriant palms
and ferns, fair women and brave men
assemble. Truly a gorgeous scene, a
kaleidoscope of changing figures, bril-
liant colors and flashing jewels! No
doubt the women are as fair and the
men as brave as those who assem-
bled at Gadsby's Tavern one hundred
years ago, yet Alexandria is richer by
far in the possession of her old ball-
room and the, memories that it holds,
than in all the superb elegance of en-
tertainment that her sister city gives,
in her modern method of celebrating
the Birthnight. For there, in

THE TOWN WASHINGTON LOVED

267

her midst at Gadsby's Tavern,
made famous by his frequent
presence, has stood the great
chief, the central figure of a throng of
happy people, dispensing bright words
and cheery smiles, while his own most
genial nature warmed to the kindly
birthday wishes that greeted him on
every side from loving friends and
neighbors.

In colonial days, the government in
Virginia was largely controlled by the
vestry of the parish, holding as it did,
in a measure, the power of civil au-
thority. Besides attending to the tem-
poral wants of the church and oversee-
ing the needs of the poor, giving the
deserving ones food and clothing as
well as medical attention, it had the
right to impose fines for the non-ob-
servance of secular laws, and with it
rested the responsibility of adminis-
tering justice.

Alexandria made one more step to-
ward progress when, in 1765, she crea-
ted the parish of Fairfax out of Truro
and chose Col. George Wash-
ington to serve as one of her
twelve vestrymen. Five years be-
fore he had been • appointed
one of the trustees of the town, and
while attending to these duties the fu-
ture statesman gave practical demon-
stration of his genius in civil govern-
ment. In order to build /the church,
the vestry was obliged to impose upon
the parish a tax of 31,185 pounds of
tobacco. From the funds raised, two
churches were to be erected, one at
Falls Church and the other in Alexan-
dria. The site chosen for the Alex-
andria church was at the head of Cam-
eron Street, only three squares from
the "Royal George" and "Gadsby's
Tavern." It was a thick wood then but

Chair in which Washington was Nursed
by his Mother

the ground, shaded by the forest trees,
seemed an ideal spot to set aside as
God's acre. In 1767 the contract was
given to James Parsons for ;£6oo ster-
ling, a large sum of money at that time,
but it was to be a handsome building,
though simple in treatment, as were all
colonial churches. Built of English
brick and roofed with shingles of juni-
per, since replaced by slate, to this day
the old church stands in a state of per-
fect preservation, — a delight to all
the visitors who on their pilgrimage to
Mount Vernon take a little while to see
this sacred building, the pride of Alex-
andria.

The severity of the interior is ex-
treme; "the arches and pediments are
of the Tuscan order, the altar piece,
pulpit and canopy of Ionic style." The
architect selected was one James
Wren, a descendant, so the story goes,

Christ Church

of the great Sir Christopher Wren,
who, as the architect of the wonderful
cathedral of St. Paul's in London,, has
shed glory not only on himself but on
his posterity. In 1772 the work of
building came to a standstill and Col.
John Carlyle agreed to complete
James Parsons' unfinished contract
for an additional sum of £220. One
year later, February 27, 1773, the
church was placed in the hands of the
vestry, who regarded it as finished "in
a workmanlike manner." The same
day Col. Washington purchased, for
£36 1 os. the pew then known as
Number 5. He also presented the
handsome brass chandelier with the
numerous crystal pendants, which
still hangs suspended from the ceil-
ing in the centre of the church.

The choice Oronoko tobacco played
268

a prominent part as a commercial fac-
tor of Alexandria, since the church
was built with it, the clergyman's sal-
ary was paid in the same way, and the
first rector, Rev. Townsend Dade, or-
dained by the Bishop of London, re-
ceived his salary in the shape of 17,280
pounds of tobacco, and for want of a
glebe, 2,500 pounds were added to this
sum. In 1770 the church was able to
purchase five hundred acres of land
and three years later was wealthy
enough to erect on it a glebe-house,
"or parsonage, with dairy, meat-house,
barn, stable and corn-house," at a cost
of £653. The next year, to complete
the convenience of the rector's family,
a hen-house was added. Thus steadily
the financial condition of the church
increased.

That women stood high in the esti-

Courtesy of D. H. Naramore

Interior of Christ Church

mation of the vestry is proved by the
fact that in the selection of a sexton
the choice was given to Susannah Ed-
wards, who evidently filled the office
well, for she was succeeded by another
dame, Mistress Cook, who was most
"peculiar in dress and physiognomy,
had a stately manner of ushering per-
sons into their pews and locking the
door upon them and with an almost
military air she patrolled the aisles,
alert to protect and prompt to suppress
any violation of order."

To the churchgoers the great family
coach of the Washingtons was a famil-
iar sight. Made in England, it was
both substantial and elegant, if some-
what heavy. Four horses were neces-
sary to draw it, but when the. Virginia
roads were very bad, six were used,
and to each span of horses there were

the liveried postilion riders. One coach
Washington possessed was truly gor-
geous ; the wheels and body were
cream in color, with gilt relief, the
body being suspended upon heavy
leather straps ; part of the sides and
front were shaded by green Venetian
blinds, shedding a delicious light in
summer, while for greater protection
in winter could be drawn curtains of
black leather; the coach throughout
was lined with the same glossy, black
leather. On the door was emblazoned
the coat-of-arms with its familiar
motto, "The result proves actions,"
and on each of the four panels was a
picture of the four seasons. In after
years this coach came into the posses-
sion of the late Bishop Meade, of Vir-
ginia, who, when it was falling to
pieces caused it to be distributed as

269

270

THE TOWN WASHINGTON LOVED

relics, and "at fairs for benevolent pur-
poses'' large profits were realized by
"converting the fragments into walk-
ing sticks, picture-frames and snuff-
boxes." The back seat of the coach
was preserved intact by the Bishop
and kept in his study.

One Sunday morning in the summer
of 1774, after service at the Episcopal
Church, surrounded by the congrega-
tion, every one of whom he well knew,
Washington advocated withdrawing
allegiance to King George, and stated
that he would fight to uphold the in-
dependence of the colonies. No more
solemn time or occasion could have
been chosen. With calmness, in a
spirit of prayerful deliberation he an-
nounced his momentous decision,
under the very shadow of the church.
Nine years after, when that independ-
ence had been successfully established
and the long contested fight so bravely
won, having resigned his commission
at Annapolis, he was free to turn his
face towards home. His arrival at
Mount Vernon was on Christmas Eve.
The next day found him once more in
his accustomed seat in the church at
Alexandria, to hear the tender mes-
sage of peace and good will that
was proclaimed like liberty throughout
the land, and no one bowed in deeper
gratitude than the great general who
came as humbly as a little child to this
his Father's House. In addition to
the Christmas service the rector, the
Rev. David Griffith, who served as
Chaplain of the Third Virginia Regi-
ment in the Revolutionary War, read
the exultant song of Moses and the
Children of Israel : "I will sing unto
the Lord, for He hath triumphed glo-
riously; the horse and his rider hath
He thrown into the sea," and the ser-

mon he preached was from the 128th
Psalm: "Yea, thou shalt see thy
children's children and peace upon
Israel." The children's children of the
men who so largely shaped the history
©f this country are still to be seen Sun-
day after Sunday in the old church,
and as the kindly word is still ex-
changed after service, one receives the
greeting from the lips of those who yet
bear the name of our illustrious dead.

Interested in everything that was
for the advancement of the com-
munity, Washington gave very sub-
stantial evidence not only of his love
for his own church but also of his
sympathy with the Presbyterians, for
he contributed towards the building of
their church, and when completed, in
1774, he occasionally worshipped with
them. It was evident that the Church
of England was the church of Vir-
ginia, as a license had to be granted
the Presbyterians from the county
court, by which it was demanded,
"that during their meetings the doors
should be kept unlocked, unbarred and
unbolted."

With the exception of his Mount
Vernon home, no building in the
country is more intimately asso-
ciated with the daily life of Wash-
ington than what was once his town
house, situated on Cameron Street
about half-way between Gadsby's Tav-
ern and Christ Church. According to
the present numbering, the lot would
now be number 512. Most unfortun-
ately, in i860, the house was torn
down to make way for city improve-
ments. Washington bought the house
in 1760, but finding it too small, he en-
larged it and during the disturbances
of the Dunmore raids had serious
thoughts of removing his family from

THE TOWN WASHINGTON LOVED

271

Mount Vernon to the safer shelter of
the town. That, however, was never
necessary. He used it chiefly as his
office, — always once a week and some-
times much oftener he was to be found
there, transacting his business affairs
and seeing his friends. Frequently,
he was accompanied by his wife, who,
in her way, enjoyed these visits to
Alexandria quite as much as did her
husband.

On August 13, 1774, a most im-
portant organization was founded,—
the Friendship Fire Company, and as
might be expected, Washington was
eager and enthusiastic for its success.
Fires were not easy to extinguish and
needed to be met with promptness and
system. In default of any fire engine,
each member agreed to carry to every
fire "two leather buckets and one great
bag of oznaburg, or wider linen." If
unsuccessful in controlling the flames,
the "great bags" were used to trans-
port the household goods to a place of
safety. This was entirely a volunteer
company, composed of friends and
neighbors, their bond of union being a
common interest and a common dan-
ger. The following year, when Wash-
ington had gone to Philadelphia, prior
to his departure for Boston to assume
command of the army, he took suf-
ficient thought, in all the perplexities
of that time of national anxiety, to re-
call the pressing necessity of the town
he loved and purchased for the Friend-
ship Fire Company a little engine, for
which he paid £80 10s.

Alexandria was steadily growing;
in 1763 new streets were laid out, —
Pitt Street, in honor of the elder Chat-
ham, and Wolfe Street for the hero of
Quebec; in 1774 two more were added
— Wilkes, after George Wilkes, a

Steps from which Washington Delivered
his Farewell Address

member of the House of Commons,
and St. Asaph, in honor of John Hali-
fax, Bishop of St. Asaph, in the House
of Lords ; both of whom in Parliament
were strongly advocating the Ameri-
can cause. Wilkes suffered severely
for the courage of his convictions, be-
ing imprisoned for some time in the
Tower of London. Did he ever know,
I wonder, that a little town in Virginia
appreciated his brave act and did all
that lay in her power to perpetuate his
memory ?

The story goes that the Hessian
prisoners were ordered by Washington
to pave the streets; since that time
many of the streets have been repaved,
but there is enough of the old work
left to fully justify the tale, for the
dimensions of the cobblestones are im-
posing and their irregularities unique.

272

THE TOWN WASHINGTON LOVED

Not until 1783 was King Street paved,
and then only "by the proceeds of a
lottery." Cameron Street was intended
to be the principal thoroughfare when
the town was first surveyed, but King
Street superseded it in business im-
portance, and Washington Street, laid
out at this time, became more fashion-
able as a place of residence.

The advantages of education had
never been neglected by the Alexan-
drians, for as early as 1739 we have
record of a school, and in 1759, by
means of a lottery, a schoolhouse was
built, which later we recognize under
the more imposing name of the Alex-
andria Academy. So important a
factor in the town had it become, that
a new building was erected for these
halls of learning and the cornerstone
was laid with impressive ceremonies
by the Masons. On the stone was a
plate with the following inscription:
"The foundation of the Alexandria
Academy was laid on the 7th day of
September, 1785, in the ninth year of
the Independence of the United States
of America, by Robert Adam, Esq.,
Master of Lodge No. 39, Ancient
York Masons, attended by the brethren,
and, as a monument of the generosity
of the inhabitants, stands dedicated
to them and all lovers of literature."

As might be supposed, Washington
was one of the trustees, and in De-
cember, 1786, he endowed the school
with £1,000, the interest of which
should "annually be employed in the
education of necessitous orphans and
other poor children."

The hours for instilling knowledge
were long and wearisome. In 1800,
from the first of May to the first of
September, when nature, in her most
beguiling mood, was luring the little

ones to play in the fields gay with
flowers, or on the banks of the blue
waters of the Potomac, their reluctant
feet were turned to the schoolhouse,
where they were obliged to present
themselves at six o'clock in the morn-
ing; and from six to eight, nine to
twelve, and two to five, the plain walls
of the schoolroom shut out the glory
of those summer days. Then came a
holiday of tzvo zvhole weeks, after
which the winter term began, continu-
ing from September 15th to May 1st.
The hours were changed — the lessen-
ing daylight shortened them a little;
thus, nine to twelve, and two to sun-
set, curtailed their midwinter work.
Doubtless the little children of Alex-
andria would have agreed with Gray
that ignorance and bliss were synony-
mous, and regretted the restricting in-
fluence that forced them to the folly of
being wise.

In 1774 Washington had realized
the importance of communication be-
tween the waters of the Ohio and the
Potomac ; not only did he consider
the advisability of connection with the
West, but by this means Alexandria
could be established as a central point
of trade. The war cut short this en-
terprise, but ten years later, when
Washington, once more a private citi-
zen, ever ready to advance the inter-
ests of Alexandria, again considered
this project, he wrote to Thomas Jef- i
ferson urging that not a moment '
should be lost, "as I know the New !
Yorkers will delay no time to remove j
every obstacle in the way of the other
communication as soon as the forts of
Oswego and Niagara are surren- j
dered." The outcome of this move-
ment led to the organization of the
Potomac Company under the auspices

Courtesy of W. H. Snowden

The Old Road

Generally used by Washington in going to the River Farm and to the races at Annapolis. Over it he travelled when
" going to the First National Congress. Down this historic way in 1781 came the forces of Gen. Greene going to the
Carolinas and the armies of Washington, Lafayette and Wayne going to Yorktown.

of Washington. Alas! this never
proved a success for Alexandria, as
the powerful "New Yorkers" proved
too strong a rival. However, in 1820
this pet scheme of Washington's led
to the construction of the Chesapeake
and Ohio Canal, and later, although it
endeavored to connect with the Poto-
mac, it was not Alexandria that reaped
the benefit, but Georgetown, located
as it was nine miles nearer the source
of commerce.

The choice of a site for the National
Capital became a subject of much in-
terest to the country and was autho-
rized by act of Congress of July 16,
1790. As it was to be as central as
possible to the thirteen original States,
the location of Alexandria determined
Jefferson, who was serving as chair-
man of the committee, to select Alex-

andria as a basis upon which to found
the Capitol. The original design was
to erect the Capitol on Shuter's Hill,
at the foot of which King Street led
directly to the Potomac, and would
have taken the place of Pennsylvania
Avenue as a commercial thoroughfare.
A bridge was to have spanned Hunt-
ing Creek, and Mount Eagle was
chosen as the site for the President's
house. The long line of hills just back
of Alexandria and running parallel
with the Potomac were to be crowned
with the public buildings. At last one
of Washington's life-long desires was
to be fulfilled, the prosperity of Alex-
andria was to be permanently secured.
Yet when it was rumored that per-
sonal motives were influencing the
committee in its selection of Alexan-
dria, and that Washington himself

273

274

THE TOWN WASHINGTON LOVED

would be benefited by the close prox-
imity of the immense Mount Vernon
plantation, he put aside his own most
cherished plans for the advancement
of this little city, and insisted that the
Capitol be located across the river on
the shore of Maryland, and later, of-
fered no protest when his ungenerous
opponents stipulated that none of the
public buildings should be erected on
the Virginia side of the Potomac.

It was a fearful blow to Alexandria,
yet she cannot regret it; she would
have been the richer in material pos-
sessions, but to have lost her loving
pride in the fact that her hero was
above suspicion, would have been not
only an infinite calamity to her, but
to the nation. Overshadowed by her
greater sister city, her own glory de-
barred by Washington's own act, yet
serene and happy she can watch the
snow-white Capitol gleaming in the
sunlight, and the flashing golden radi-
ance of the Library dome so near,
while to the westward rises the single
shaft of marble, the nation's monu-
ment to the nation's hero, — pure,
noble, lofty as the glorious spirit of
which it stands a type, pointing ever
upward, onward, to better things.
And, as he sacrificed all private de-
sires for his country's good, so Alex-
andria followed in his steps and gladly
made her sacrifice for him.

A society that claimed much of the
attention of Washington was the Ma-
sonic Lodge. The order was formed
on February 3, 1783, and was a part
of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania.
Five years later, October 25, 1788, a
desire was expressed to be affiliated
with the Grand Lodge of Virginia;
this request was granted and on April
28, 1789, the number of the Alexan-

dria lodge was changed from No. 39
of Pennsylvania to No. 22 of Virginia.
The first cornerstone laid by the lodge
was that of the Alexandria Academy,
and later, on April 15, 1791, the
cornerstone on Jones's Point that
marked the southern boundary of the
District of Columbia; the society also
assisted in laying the cornerstone of
the United States Capitol, September
18, 1793. At this time Dr. Dick, the
Worshipful Master, invited Washing-
ton, who was not only a member of the
Lodge, but President of the United
States, to conduct the Masonic cere-
monies. With a grand procession and
most impressive services, the south-
east cornerstone of the Capitol was
laid. Part of the inscription on the
plate is as follows :

"This southeast corner stone of the Cap-
itol of the United States of America, in the
city of Washington, was laid on the 18th
day of September, 1793, in the thirteenth
year of American Independence, in the first
year of the second term of the Presidency
of George Washington, whose virtues in the
civil administration of his country have
been as conspicuous and beneficial as his
military valor and prudence have been use-
ful in establishing her liberties, and in the
year of Masonry 5793, by .the President of
the United States, in concert with the
Grand Lodge of Maryland, several lodges
under its jurisdiction, and Lodge No. 22,
from Alexandria, Va."

Upon the plate were deposited corn,
wine and oil. After the address by the
President and the offering of prayer,
several volleys were discharged by the
artillery, when the whole party ad-
journed to an immense booth that had
been erected for the occasion to par-
take of the ox weighing five hundred
pounds that was barbecued. "Before
dark the whole company departed with

From an old, broken negative

Washington Lodge

joyful hopes of the production of their
labor."

As St. John is the patron saint of
Masonry, his day was always observed
by services at either the Presbyterian
Meeting House or the Episcopal
Church, as Christ Church was then
called. The sermon delivered was in-
variably an exhortation upon charity.
These services were followed by a
grand banquet at one of the taverns.
Thus in 1784 we find an entry that
Washington dined with the lodge at
Wise's Tavern.

When Washington retired from the
Presidency, on March 4, 1797, one
of the first invitations he received
was from the Alexandria Lodge re-
questing him to "partake of a dinner
with them/' and asking him to appoint
the time. He selected the first of
April, and on that day rode on horse-

back to Wise's Tavern, where so many
of the banquets were held, and the
toast he offered then was "The Lodge
at Alexandria, and all Masons
throughout the world." When the
feast was over, he was escorted not
only by the Masons but by the
mounted troops of the town to Cam-
eron Run, the ford of Great Hunting
Creek, and as they watched the com-
manding figure, on his spirited horse,
cross the ford to reach his own quiet
home on the Potomac, it was with
grateful hearts they realized that after
the long years of absence, the time had
come when he was once more given
back to them a fellow citizen. Hap-
pily it was hidden from them how
short that time would be.

Only two years and a half, from
March, 1797, to December, 1799, did
the old life envelop him once more,

275

276

THE TOWN WASHINGTON LOVED

the old friends gather about him ; busy
as ever, yet relieved from the strain of
public affairs, he was continually rid-
ing to Alexandria, and when the news
came of his death on that fateful four-
teenth of December, Alexandria could
scarcely believe it, the blow was so
sudden, so crushing, the illness had
been so short and the loss so irre-
parable. On Sunday morning it be-
came known, as the people were as-
sembling at church, and from that
time until his interment, late on the
following Wednesday, the bells con-
tinued to toll; the ships in the harbor
had their flags at half-mast and all
business was suspended, for it was a
season of personal grief to each Alex-
andrian.

At Mount Vernon the funeral ser-
vices were conducted with that simple
dignity that had ever marked his life ;
only loving friends had come to mourn
and do him honor, but that meant all
of Alexandria, as well as neighbors
from the country and those living
across the Potomac on the Maryland
shore, — a vast number who had come
in contact with this great, good man.
The many organizations of Alexandria
in which Washington had always held
a prominent place were fully repre-
sented, and the Independent Blues,
whom just one month before he had
reviewed from the steps of Gadsby's
Tavern, formed part of the military
escort to conduct the body from the
house to the grave. The burial service
was read by the rector of Christ
Church, Alexandria, and the Masonic
rites were performed by Dr. Dick,
Worshipful Master of Alexandria
Lodge No. 22, and by the Rev. James
Muir, its Chaplain.

As yet the nation had not learned its

grief; the means of communication
were slow, and Congress was then as-
sembled at Philadelphia. The news
was not received till December 18th,
the day of the funeral. Every mark of
respect and honor that a grateful
nation could bestow upon its illus-
trious dead was arranged for by Con-
gress ; a memorial service was held
December 26th; the army and navy
were ordered to wear mourning, and
the people recommended to wear crape
for thirty days ; it was also recom-
mended that a marble monument be
erected as a memorial by the United
States in the city of Washington, and
February 22d was set apart as a per-
petual national holiday.

Across the waters, Napoleon, as
First Consul, gave the command that
for ten days the army wear mourning
and ordered a funeral oration to be
pronounced by the Marquis de Fon-
tanes in the Temple of Mars; and
England, softened by the lapse of time,
ordered the flags of the ships in the
English Channel to be placed at half-
mast, thus doing homage to the mem-
ory of her gallant foe, while recogniz-
ing that his name would rank among
the great, — nearer the ideal Arthur
than any English hero since her great
King Alfred.

But nowhere, apart from the grief-
stricken family, was the sorrow more
keenly felt than in the little town on
the Potomac, where Washington had
been known and loved since childhood.
His example left an indelible impress
upon Alexandria; to her he had ever
been an inspiration. What if she did
lose the prosperity that would have at-
tended her as the seat of the Federal
government, her heritage has been
a richer one ; she had known him in the

YE PUMPION PYE

277

close companionship of daily life, had
ever seen him :

"Modest, kindly, all-accomplish'd, wise,
With a sublime repression of himself,
Not swaying to this faction or to that;

Not making his high place the lawless perch
Oi wing'd ambitions ; but thro' all the tract

of years
Wearing the white flower of a blameless

life."

Ye Pumpion Pye

By Adele E. Thompson

A SMALL fire burned low in
the fireplace, the stand held
an array of cups and
glasses, and the air had a
smell as of bitter medicine. Mrs.
Abigail Price paused a moment at the
door, then crossed the floor with the
tiptoed tread so often affected in
sick-rooms to the high four-post bed,
curtafned with blue and white striped
homespun linen.

"Good afternoon, Aunt Pamela;
how are you to-day?"

The thin and wrinkled face, look-
ing still smaller in its deep ruffled
cap, turned impatiently on the pil-
low. "If ye want to know, Abigail
Ann, I'm poorly." The voice though
weak held an accent both sharp and
decisive.

"I'm sorry, Aunt Pamela, I was
hoping to find you better."

"Ye won't find me better, now er
ever. I'm a-failin' steddy, as you an'
everybody else can see."

Mrs. Abigail coughed softly; it
was very evident that the spirit of
Aunt Pamela Dyer was not failing,
whatever might be true of tire out-
ward flesh.

"Now don't get discouraged, Aunt

Pamela;" her tone was conciliatory;
"you may last a good spell yet, an'
even outlive some of us younger
ones."

"I do' know as I want to live long,"
was the grim response, "if I've got to
lay here an' hear Marier Jane Phil-
lips mugglin' an' bangin' about the
work. She broke one o' my best
chany cups only this mornin', an'
when I heerd it go smash I sed, 'Lord,
let thy servant depart before I hev
ter put up with much more such keer-
lessness.' I hed it on my mind before
you cum in, an' now as soon as you
get hum I want you ter write fer me
ter Elnathan, tell him I'm a-failin',
an' I want him ter cum hum. He's
moved an' ye'll find how ter direct in
his last letter; it's in the upper left-
hand little drawer o' the bureau. This
havin' but one boy an' him at the
ends o' the airth is wearin' enough
when you're well, let alone when
sickness comes."

"Oh, Boston isn't so terrible far,"
ventured Mrs. Abigail.

"I guess when ye get past eighty,
an' bedfast, ye'll think it's consider-
able fur."

As she spoke, Abigail Price had

278

YE PUMPION PYE

opened the little drawer. As she
took out the letter a slip of folded
paper fell to the floor. She stooped to
pick it up, gave a slight start and a
furtive glance toward the bed, but
the keen black eyes were for the mo-
ment turned away.

"Here's a bit of paper ; if you don't
mind I'll write the address down on
it. It's a different street, an' I'm
afraid I won't get the number right
unless I have it."

"Put it down then, an' be sure it's
straight, though when I was your
age I could carry things in my head."

Mrs. Abigail carefully copied the
address, then she rose. "I'll write to
Elnathan the first thing when I get
home."

"An' be sure to tell him ter cum
right away."

"Yes, I'll tell him."

As she came out the door and down
the narrow flagged walk, another
woman was fastening her horse by the
gate, using a line for a hitching strap.
She looked up and nodded. "I
thought I'd drive over and see how
Aunt Pamela was to-day."

"Well, she's Aunt Pamela still,"
was the response. "She says she's
going to die, and I do' know but
mebby she will, for you know, Susan,
that when she made up her mind
to anything she'd carry it through if
the Evil One himself stood in the
way."

"Yes, she was some set by spells."

"There always was a queer streak
in the Price family," continued Mrs.
Abigail. "I was thankful my John
didn't have it."

"Well, Joshua favored the Bemis,
there wasn't any Price about him.
And though she had her ways I al-

ways got along all right with Aunt
Pamela."

"Oh, I ain't nothing to complain
of, though I'll own I ain't none of the
mealy-mouthed kind. But I must
hurry home, she wanted me to write
to Elnathan for her."

Abigail Price and Susan Bemis
were both widows, whose husbands
had been nephews to Aunt Pamela,
and neither woman had ever suffered
the relationship to lapse. As they
talked, Mrs. Abigail held the paper
on which she had written the address
well under her shawl, and on reaching
home her first act was to unfold and
carefully read it. "I suppose Susan'll
be hoppin' when she finds it out," was
her mental comment, "but I don't
care ; her right's no better than mine.
I've always wanted that and now I've
got it," and she smiled the smile of
the successful.

Aunt Pamela Dyer's prophecy
concerning herself proved true, and a
few weeks later a decorous funeral
train wound up from the old gray
homestead to the white meeting-
house set by the village green, and
the burial ground behind it. The
autumn weeks slipped by till it came
Thanksgiving. The date was in the
good old time New England, when
the minister was settled for life and
his people held him in corresponding
affection. Christmas the good folk
of Sippeco knew not of, or at best
held it as a popish observance, but
on each recurring Thanksgiving
more than one pride of the turkey
flock, with the choicest of the garden
product, and culinary chef d'oeuvres
found their way to the parsonage.

Among others Mrs. Susan Bemis
stopped on her way to church with

YE PUMPION PYE

279

her offering, a big loaf of plum cake,
" Tisn't what I had in my mind to
bring, but I'm hoping by another
Thanksgiving — " As she spoke she
ran her eyes over the table on which
various other gifts were displayed,
and with a sudden start she stopped.

The minister's wife followed her
glance. "You are surprised to see
one of Mrs. Dyer's famous 'pumpion
pyes'? So was I. Almost every
Thanksgiving she had brought
one to me, and told me the
story of the recipe, how it was
one that had come down from
her mother and grandmother and
great-grandmother, and she supposed
she was the only person who knew
how to make it, so when she was
gone I didn't suppose I should ever
see one again."

"But it seems you have?" Mrs.
Susan felt that her lips were stiffened
as she spoke.

"Yes, Mrs. Price left this but a few
moments ago."

Connected by marriage, living on
adjoining farms, between Abigail
Price and Susan Bemis there had
existed for years a rivalry, more or
less mild, concerning household mat-
ters. Whose clothes should flutter
first on the line, whose dinner horn
should earliest sound its note, became
with them events of importance ;
whose butter should be ' firmest,
whose bread whitest, were subjects
of deep solicitude ; and such was the
jealousy that neither counted time
nor toil, might they but win a triumph
over the other. Aunt Pamela's
treasured recipe had long been a
coveted possession, so now it was no
wonder that" Susan Bemis glared at
the inanimate object of offence.

"It may be," the minister's wife
hastened to add, feeling the untoward
in the atmosphere, "that Mrs. Dyer
showed her how to make them; I
always wondered that she didn't
some one."

"No, indeed, Aunt Pamela had her
ways, an' one of tHem was that she'd
never tell how she made things, or
let any one see her for fear they'd
find out;" and she shut her lips as if
afraid she would say more.

It was very little of the Thanks-
giving sermon Parson Hunt had so
carefully prepared that Mrs. Bemis
heard that morning, and the longer
she nursed her wrath the hotter it
grew. But fate seemed to guard a
premature explosion; some acquaint-
ance stopped her after service to
talk of trivial neighborhood matters,
when she jerked the lines to urge her
old horse to greater speed the line
broke and had to be replaced by a
borrowed one, so that Mrs. Price was
just entering her own house as she
drew up at the gate.

Hastily following her in, she made
no pause for preliminaries. "What
I've come for, Abigail, and what I
want to know is how you come
by Aunt Pamela's 'pumpion pye'
recipe?"

Mrs. Price had known this moment
must come, at the same time she
hedged a little. "What makes you
think I have it?"

"Because I saw with my own eyes
the pie you took to Miss Parson
Hunt, and Elnatha'n couldn't find
anything of it* when he looked for
me."

Mrs. Abigail braced herself as for
an onset. "If you want to know I can
tell you. Aunt Pamela gave it to me."

280

YE PUMPION PYE

Susan Bemis's lips tightened. "Aunt
Pamela wasn't one to say one thing
an' do another. After Elnathan's wife
had said she wouldn't fuss so for any
pie that ever was made, Aunt Pamela
said to me, 'Susan, when I'm gone
you shall have grandmother's recipe,
and you can give it to Elmine so it will
go right on down in the family: I ain't
trustin' any more son's wives." Those
were her very words, and I know she
never give it to you of her own free
will. I ain't knowing how you come
by it, but this I do know, that it
wasn't in any honest or outspoke
way."

The other's face turned a1 dull red.
"Perhaps you'll be saying next that
I stole it."

"That's the word we generally use
when folks take what belongs to some
one else."

"Susan Bemis," Mrs. Abigail's
voice trembled, "what with your
temper I've taken a good deal from
you, but nobody shall come into my
own house and talk to me like this."

"You needn't worry," was the
retort. "I sha'n't trouble your house
again for one while."

"I ain't caring if you never do."

As Mrs. Bemis turned away a boy,
who had been looking from one to
the other in troubled perplexity,
pulled Mrs. Price's dress. "Mother,
you ar'n't goin' to let Aunt Susan go
away mad, are you?"

" Hush, Theron," was the sharp
rejoinder, "you don't know anything
about this."

While the small girl Susan Bemis
was leading by the hand turned her
scarlet hood over her shoulder wist-
fully, "Mother, can't I stay and play
with Theron a little while?"

"No, and you're never going to
play with Theron any more, either."

Had it concerned any ordinary pie
Mrs. Bemis might have overlooked
the offence. But one wherein the
succulent fruit expanded as "pum-
pion," one that had come down from
an ancestor, more still that was the
unique and only one of its kind, and
whose possession imparted a social
and neighborhood distinction, was
something she felt that she could
neither condone nor forgive. And the
same considerations equally con-
firmed Mrs. Price to maintain her
right of possession, however doubt-
fully acquired.

With the passing of time the path
to the old" friendship grew harder to
retrace. The two mothers cultivated
the art of ignoring each other's exist-
ence. Theron Price no longer
shared his sled with Elmine Bemis,
nor enjoyed the delights of Aunt
Susan's big barn, while Elmine ceased
to look upon Theron as her champion,
and quite forgot the flavor of Aunt
Abigail's cookies.; and as the currents
of life drifted them apart even the
remembrance of old child friendliness
grew faint and dim.

So the years went by till Theron
was grown to a young man, frank
and manly, and Elmine bloomed in
the winsome freshness of eighteen.
Nature had endowed Theron with a
fine bass voice I and Elmine with a
clear contralto, — second was the term
she knew it by, — and when fresh
voices were needed for the choir
of the village church, Theron and El-
mine were called into service. And
what with singing schools and choir
practice, and the needful looking over
the same book, and facing each other

YE PUMPION PYE

281

in the singers' gallery on Sundays, it
was the old story of love that like
the wind cometh where it listeth,
love that knows not factional feud,
and laughs at family differences.

But then came the trouble, for
Susan Bemis shut her ears and set
her face as a flint against one of
Abigail Price's household; and El-
mine, like a well-trained Puritan girl,
would not disobey her mother even
if the obedience broke her own and
her lover's heart.

As for Abigail Price in those days
she felt that Providence had meted
to her a punishment out of all pro-
portion to the offence. Theron was
her one child, the idol of her
affection, and it went to her heart
of hearts to see him unhappy.
Besides, she well knew that Elmine
was not only a lovable but a1 capable
girl. No one around could spin more
run of flax a day, and her butter and
preserves had both taken premiums
at the township showing. She herself
could not have asked for Theron a
wife more fair or energetic. In addi-
tion, and perhaps the ' iron that
pierced deepest of all, Elmine was
also an only child, and to look from
her window was to see the fields of
the two farms lying side by side as if
even nature had meant they should be
blended into one. And there seemed
nothing she could do but to groan
and wish that Aunt Pamela's "pum-
pion pye" had never existed.

So matters stood when Thanks-
giving Day again came round, and the
people, as for all the years in the past,
gathered at the square white "meet-
ing-house," and rose when the
minister entered, and turning, faced
the gallery and singers when psalm

and hymn were sung. Of all the
choir Theron and Elmine filled Mrs.
Abigail's gaze, both making an evi-
dent effort to look unconcerned,
though Theron's face wore an ex-
pression at once down-hearted and
dogged, and Elmine's mouth had a
pitiful droop. Poor young creatures,
their small world seemed to them
sadly awry, so much so that only the
evening before Theron had announced
to his mother that he could bear it no
longer and that he was going to sea.
And with that dread possibility loom-
ing before her it was scant heed Mrs.
Abigail paid to the doings of the
General Court of Massachusetts, or
the condition of the country.

Susan Bemis was not present, and
at the church door she heard Elmine
explaining the cause of her absence.
Judge Porter and his wife, from
another and a larger town, had been
hindered from their destination by
the river bridge being down, and so
forced to either halt or turn back,
they had taken the opportunity to pay
a long promised visit to their old
friend, Mrs. Bemis. "And we were
not expecting any one," Elmine's
voice was almost pathetic, "and at
Judge Porter's they live so hand-
somely that we wanted things our
very best for them. I had to come to
sing in the anthem, and mother said
she'd do the best she could, though
she never was so mortified in her life.
At least there'll be turkey and cran-
berries."

As Mrs. Price listened she felt a
housewifely thrill of sympathy for
Susan Bemis's dilemma. She herself
had expected her brother's family
for the day, but at the very last sick-
ness had prevented their coming, so

282

YE PUMPION PYE

she had the preparation but not the
guests. Once Susan would have felt
free to call on her in such an emer-
gency. And then a sudden thought
came to her, one that kept her quiet
through the homeward ride. "Wait
a little," she said, as Theron drove up
at the door, "I want you to do an
errand for me."

In a few moments she returned
with a carefully covered basket.
"Judge Porter's folks have come to
Susan Bemis unexpected ; take this
over to her with my best wishes."

His mother's face was set, and
Theron was turning away in a silence
eloquent of astonishment when she
added, "And — and you needn't mind
about hurrying back if you want to
stay a little. Just you and I, we won't
have dinner till late."

"Stay a little!" he repeated.
"There's not much staying for me
where Aunt Susan Bemis is."

As he drove away Abigail .Price
sank trembling in her chair; what-
ever its outcome she had played her
last card, not for herself but for her
son's sake.

Mrs. Bemis was in 'a condition
decidedlyperturbed. With the best en-
deavor, to expand a home meal into a
repast for guests of especial honor is
not easy, and as the final moment
drew nigh her sense of dissatisfaction
increased. It was at this point that
Theron appeared at the kitchen door.
Elmine's greeting was a flush of glad-
ness, and a little gasp of dismay at
his temerity. But as though it were
an every day occurrence he held out
his burden. "Aunt Susan, mother
heard that you had unexpected com-
pany and she sent this with her best
wishes."

There had been times when the
basket would have been returned
unopened, nor was it only the
exigency of the occasion, for as she
explained afterwards, she was so
flustered she hardly knew what she
was doing when she took it.

As she lifted the wrapping a look
of surprise crossed her face, and to
Elmine's whisper, "What is it?" made
answer, "A loaf of fresh pound cake,
and, yes it is, one of Aunt Pamela's
pies."

While speaking she saw a folded
slip of stiff yellow paper pinned to the
inside of the towel, and unfolding it
her eye rested on Aunt Pamela's
treasured culinary secret:

"YE PUMPION PYE.

"Take about half a pound of Pumpion
and slice' it, a little Rosemary, Parsley and
Sweet Marjoram slipped off the stalks, and
chop them small, then take Cinamon,
Nutmeg, Pepper, and six- Cloves and beat
them, take ten Eggs and beat them, then
mix them and beat them altogether, and
put is as much sugar as you see fit, then
fry them like a froiz, after it is fryed, let
it stand till it be cold, then fill your Pye,
take sliced Apples thinne rounde-ways,
and lay a row of the Froiz and layer of
Apples with Currants betwixt the layers
while your Pye is fitted, and put in a good
deal of sweet butter before you close it,
when the Pye is baked take six yelks of
Eggs, some White-wine or Vergis, and
make a Caudle of this, but not too thicke,
cut up the Lid and put it in, stir them well
together whilst the Eggs and Pumpions
be not perceived and so serve up."

Times there had been and not a
few when even this extended olive
branch would have been repulsed,
but at the moment she felt that the
pie, -and the pie only, could fill the
vacancy and fittingly crown the din-
ner. Elmine, looking over her mother's

YE PUMPION PYE

283

shoulder, had read the recipe,
and comprehended its import. For a
moment she held her breath till the
latter said a little stiffly, for the habit
of years is not easily broken, "Tell
your mother she is kind, and I
thank her."

But Elmine's hand was on her
mother's arm. "Dinner is just ready," '
she whispered; "cannot. I ask Theron
to stay?"

Susan Bemis looked up in her
daughter's wistful, pleading eyes.
Elmine was dear to her heart, she
had no straw against Theron save as
his mother's son, and there came to
her the swift realization that it was
rather inconsequent to forgive the
one and hold offence against the
other. She had not considered all
that was implied; there was no time
now to reason it out, the gravy
demanded instant attention, she had
only time to answer, "Ask him if you
want to."

In due time the pie made its
appearance, in noble pieces flanked
by pudding and pound cake. At
sight of it the judge's wife gave an
exclamation. "If you haven't an old-

fashioned 'pumpion pye' ; my grand-
mother used to make them, but 1
haven't seen one I don't know when."

Mrs. Bemis, who had been on the
point of entering on its family
history, regarded her with almost a
stare, which the other failed to
notice, as she went on, "I have the
old English cookbook in which it
was first published, one used by
generations of our best New England
cooks, but I have never dared to
attempt this 'singular good' rulle, as it
is called, myself."

Susan Bemis's mouth fell slightly
open. Then the recipe was in a book
where any one might have it. The
blow was greater than the first loss,
and viewed in this light, Mrs. Abi-
gail's securing it, whatever the
means, shrank into an unimportant
incident; indeed she smiled grimly at
the thought of what Abigail would
say when she knew the fact.

But Elmine and Theron, sitting
side by side, heard nothing about the
pie; and in that other home the
mother ceased her anxious watch of
the clock and her face shone with a
new sense of peace and gladness.

The New Profession of Forestry

By George Ethelbert Walsh

THE new profession of prac-
tical forestry in this
country assumes consider-
able importance just now
in view of the need of radical change
in the methods of protecting and pre-
serving our woodland districts from
the vandalism of the thoughtless.
For a quarter of a century the policy
of appealing to individuals and cor-
porations to consider the aesthetic
side of the question has been creating
a healthy sentiment in favor of pre-
serving our forests from swift denuda-
tion ; but this has not stayed the
hands of the lumbermen and forest-
destroyers whose interests were in-
volved. The crystallization of senti-
ment, however, in a movement toward
intelligent, scientific, practical forest-
ry promises results that will insure
for the future a condition eminently
satisfactory to all.

This movement has come none too
soon to save our forests from almost
complete destruction, for in the great
spruce and hemlock belt of New Eng-
land, in the almost limitless piny
woods of the south, and in the great
fir, oak and pine forests of the West
and Northwest, the lumber camps,
saw-mills, wood-pulp and paper-mills
and furniture factories have pushed
their way with relentless energy, con-
suming the trees at the rate of tens
of millions of feet per year. A great

284

many thousands of acres of forest land
are swept by fire every season, and
the annual bill for timber destroyed
in this way averages two or three
million dollars. The loss through
waste due to the destruction of small
trees is another item of great magni-
tude. The butchery of pine, spruce and
hemlock has reached such unparal-
leled magnitude in the last quarter of
a century that our forest lands have
been restricted and reduced to less
than half their former areas and pro-
duction. Fifteen and twenty years
ago statistical writers on forestry pre-
dicted that with the beginning of the
twentieth century there would prac-
tically be a lumber famine in this
country, and our forests would be of
little or no avail in preventing or re-
lieving it. The reason that there has
been no such unpleasant result is that
the lumbermen themselves heeded
the warning of scientists, and at-
tempted to harvest their crops with-
out destroying the prospects for future
supplies. According to the old
method of lumbering, the forests were
practically and totally destroyed,
young and old trees being cut down,
and in many cases the underbrush
burnt over to complete the work. To-
day the shrewd lumbermen cut their
timber only from such trees as have
reached maturity, and by thinning
out, and not cutting down young and

NEW PROFESSION OF FORESTRY

285

old alike, they prepare an annual har-
vest of good timber that should
never cease.

Forest culture naturally reached a
high stage of development in Eng-
land long before it was thought of
here. In Germany, France, Austria,
Switzerland, Italy, Roumania, and
England the public and private forests
have been as systematically and scien-
tifically cultivated as any well-man-
aged farm. The forests are maintained
in perpetuity, and only the annual
crop of ripe trees cut down for con-
sumption. They are divided into sec-
tions, with practical foresters for each,
and the trees are marked according to
their age. Those reaching maturity
are marked for cutting, while a certain
number are left for seed production.
For upwards of a century now the
comparatively limited forest lands of
the great populous European coun-
tries have supplied the inhabitants
with nearly all the lumber required
in the arts and trades simply through
a system of conserving instead of
wasting. Practical experiments have
demonstrated that the largest produc-
tion of valuable timber could be made
by the highest development of a
few specimens rather than by the
attempt to grow hundreds of inferior
trees to maturity upon the same acre.
Thinning out of the European forests
has consequently been productive of
immense benefit to the countries, and
it is now practised in this country
with the idea in view of preserving
our woodlands for future use and pro-
ductivity.

The forestry division of the Agri-
cultural Department at Washington
was created a number of years ago
for the purpose of making a sys-

tematic study of American forests, to
collect statistics concerning them, to
give valuable advice to lumbermen
and owners, and eventually to make
arrangements to preserve the trees on
the national domain. The scheme
thus laid down has been practically
carried out in all its details. The
amount of reliable data concerning
our forests in the possession of the
division is comprehensive enough to
be of the utmost value to scientists
and practical lumbermen, and these
statistics are consulted and considered
whenever large deals involving the
transfer of millions of acres of forest
land are made. The practical timber
cutter and lumberman have found in
the advice issued by the forestry divi-
sion valuable suggestions which have
made their trees produce far more to
the acre than would have otherwise
been the case. Many of the largest
lumber dealers have put into practice
forest culture according to the direc-
tions given by the Washington ex-
perts, and they have acknowledged
freely the success of their experi-
ments.

In cooperating with the practical
lumbermen and owners of private
forests, the forestry experts at Wash-
ington have gradually created a de-
mand for professional foresters, which
to-day is far from being supplied. As
the profession extends, the need of
trained experts will increase, and it
is to meet the new requirements of
the day that the forestry division and
the state agricultural stations are
training men to the work.

Since the beginning of the present
movement to preserve our forests
there have been about 50,000,000
acres of public land withdrawn from

286

NEW PROFESSION OF FORESTRY

sale for federal forest preserves.
There have also been established
State reservations in New York,
Pennsylvania, Maine, New Hamp-
shire, Minnesota, Wisconsin and
Kansas. Four schools of forestry-
have been founded, and these are
turning out practical foresters skilled
in the art of making the trees produce
their most at a minimum expense
of time and money. Besides these
national and State preserves there are
many large private preserves, which
are cooperating with the government
authorities in practically demonstrat-
ing the value of careful, systematic
culture of trees.

One of the most noted of these pri-
vate forests, both in the extent of its
acreage, and in value of its trees and
systematic culture, is that of Geo. W.
Vanderbilt, at Biltmore, North Caro-
lina. For ten years now this forest
preserve has been growing. The
work was started in 1891 by .Gifford
Pinchot, now the forester of the
Department of Agriculture, on some
four thousand acres of land, but it
has gradually extended until to-day it
covers a noble forest of some 100,000
acres. This great experiment
was definitely outlined by Mr.
Pinchot at the beginning, and experts
have carried out the original scheme
with systematic success. The native
trees of that section of the country
have been supplemented by many
other species, which, it was thought,
would thrive in the soil and climate,
and to-day the Biltmore forest pre-
sents the greatest number of species
of any private property in the country.

Dr. W. Seward Webb has an Adi-
rondack tract of some 40,000 acres of
forest land in New York State, which

he systematically cultivates under ex-
pert foresters. Nominally called a
private game preserve, wherein are
bred and protected most of the species
of native animals and birds, the great
stretch of woodland is in reality a
model cultivated forest where experi-
enced woodsmen watch and guard
the trees against the despoiler's axe.
All parts of the estate are connected
by telephone, and the woodsmen
notify the head office if fire breaks
out in their particular part of the
woods. Fire is the greatest evil
which threatens our forests ; not even
the lumber mills and paper factories
equal this in the extent of damage
done.

In Pennsylvania there is a model
private forest belonging to the Girard
estate, located near Pottsville, which
has attracted considerable attention
by the results obtained from modern
forest culture. Mr. William C. Whit-
ney has an Adirondack forest preserve
which he has placed under the charge
of experts, and the lumber cut from
this annually yields him profit enough
to show that there is money to be
made in the work if properly handled.
Even the paper companies and pulp-
mill corporations, alarmed at the
danger of using up all their raw
material, have entered into forest
cultivation systematically. The Inter-
national Paper Company has within
a few years adopted a system of re-
stricting the cutting of spruce trees on
a part of its lands in Maine, New
York, Vermont and New Hampshire.
One of these tracts consists of 120,000
acres, and nothing is cut from it ex-
cept for camps, bridges, cribs, dams,
piers and corduroys. This tract is
carefully watched, and the trees are

NEW PROFESSION OF FORESTRY

287

now protected so that they can reach
maturity without injury. Several
other paper and private pulp-mill
companies have established similar
restrictions on their forest lands, and
some are planting new trees
on tracts that were denuded years
ago.

The government and states in
undertaking to preserve the great
natural forest preserves of the country
have entered upon an enterprise of
great magnitude, and to accomplish
it there must be trained a small army
of experts. Last year nearly seventy
foresters were kept in the field by the
United States Government to study
the forest lands, tree growths, and
other practical matters pertaining to
the question. Part of their time was
spent in Washington studying books
and lectures on forestry in other
lands, in which the experiences and
experiments of others were given as
data to base conclusions on for future
work in the field. The idea of the
government is to send out these ex-
perts with a thorough practical and
theoretical knowledge of forestry, so
that at no time can a problem come-
up which they will not be able to meet
intelligently.

With 50,000,000 acres of national
forest reserves under its charge the
forestry division has plenty of work
ahead of it in drawing up working
plans and putting them into effective
operation. While some of the States
have their own forestry schools and
colleges, the Washington bureau
makes it a point to cooperate with the
local authorities for the purpose of
producing the best results. For in-
stance the great Adirondack preserves
in New York State are subjects of

a good deal of thought and attention
both on the part of the Washington
authorities and the experts of the
New York State College of Forestry.
The latter, established at Ithaca under
the direction of Cornell University,
has already proved an invaluable aid
to the national forestry bureau, and
the two work harmoniously together
in the field and lecture room. There
are 30,000 acres of forest set aside
in the Adirondack regions for field
work of the students at the state
college of forestry. Three years ago
when the forestry department was es-
tablished there were only four
students at the State College. These
passed from the college last year and
immediately received good positions.
To-day there are upward of 55 stu-
dents.

With its 30,000 acres of forest land
at its disposal, the New York State
College of Forestry undertakes to pre-
serve the trees, cultivate them properly,
and give instructions to the students
which will enable them to take full
charge of a similar woodland tract and
make it profitable to the owners. The
authorities endeavor to make the ex-
periment self-supporting. In order
to cultivate a forest tract trees must
be continually cut for commercial
purposes. ' Indeed, the harvesting of
an annual crop, which will not in-
terfere with the growth of the young
trees, is the great desideratum.

The college students at Cornell dis-
pose of some 20,000 cords of retort
and fuel wood and from two to four
million feet of logs annually, and they
go through the whole domain and
mark the trees ready for cutting, and
those which by their size, robustness,
and favorable location are considered

288

NEW PROFESSION OF FORESTRY

the best for seed trees. These latter
are left standing to keep up the supply
of new saplings ; but where they do
not suffice seeds are planted.

The reforesting of new and old
tracts of ground furnishes employ-
ment to many of the students, and it
is a work that enlists the greatest
enthusiasm. Burnt-over and cut-over
areas are planted not only with the
native trees, but with those imported
from Europe. There are nurseries
connected with the forestry college
whefe young seedlings of native and
imported trees are planted. There
are at present over one million such
seedlings growing in the nurseries
at Ithaca, and between 100,000 and
200,000 of these will be ready for
transplanting each succesive year.
In the past two years nearly 200,000
seedlings have been planted from the
nurseries, including such species as
the Norway and Douglass spruce,
the Scotch pine, the European larch,
the Colorado white fir, and the
common white pine. When it was
difficult to secure seedlings for the
work it cost $9.90 per acre to reforest
the land ; but in the past year the cost
has been reduced to $4.85 per acre.
This will be further reduced in a year
or two when the nurseries and work
have been organized according to
plans now under consideration.

There is a forest school established
at Yale College, which has the same
object in view, and students who
graduate there are pretty sure to
secure employment. The Govern-
ment is in pressing need of expert
foresters who can go out upon the
great national forest preseives of the
country and teach local workers how

best to handle their woodlands. The
Washington forestry bureau regularly
takes a number of the graduates from
the State forestry colleges, and sends
them to different parts of the country.
Their first service is to join a field
party as "student assistants," receiv-
ing as compensation $25 per month
and expenses while actually em-
ployed. Each field party studies some
particular forest land in the south,
east or west. Sometimes it camps
in the woods half the year, and ranges
over vast areas, covering from 500 to
1,000 miles in the course of the
summer. The party estimates the
number of trees to the acre, the
amount of merchantable timber, re-
ports upon the character of each
section, and makes recommendations
as to the best method of checking
the spread of such dangerous enemies
as insects, tree moths, dry rots and
fires.

Before the students are eligible to
such a position they have passed
through a course of study of trees
which makes them pretty familiar
with their growth and general
characteristics. The forestry school
at Yale has now organized a summer
school at Milford, Pennsylvania,
where practical and theoretical studies
can be conducted in the very heart
of the woods. This summer school
is intended not only for students who
are preparing themselves for profes-
sional work as foresters, but for all
interested in the preservation of our
forests, for farmers who wish to
cultivate their wooded districts
more successfully, and for lumber-
men and owners of large forest
preserves.

Francis Hopkinson : Man of Affairs

and Letters

By Annie, Russell Marble

TpHE penetrative rays
of modern research,
turned upon Ameri-
can history, have
brought into clear
vision many impor-
tant crises, and have
given true focus and
relation to many personalities. A
few historical characters have lost
thereby somewhat of their tradi-
tional prestige; others have gained
their long-deferred recognition. Pre-
eminent among the leaders of the
later Colonial and Revolutionary dec-
ades, tested and loved by his own gen-
eration, honored by historians to-day,
stands Francis Hopkinson, jurist and
statesman, wit and orator, one of the
signers of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, a distinguished man of af-
fairs and letters.

His was an era that educed the deep-
est convictions and the most diverse
services from all patriot ' hearts.
Among his contemporaries, both in
statecraft and literature, Francis
Hopkinson was pre-eminently versatile
in gifts, alert and unswerving in word
and action. In all his life 'record he
exemplified the motto on his family
crest, Semper paratus. By counsels
of wisdom and zeal, by orations and
verses of scathing ridicule, he was one
of the trenchant promoters of inde-

pendence, and later one of the most
loyal and efficient sustainers of Fed-
eral government. Professor Tyler, in
his "Literary History of the American
Revolution," has well characterized
this man as "a patriot of austere prin-
ciple, a statesman of genuine sagacity,
a citizen of high civic courage, a wit
and satirist, — the edge of his sarcasm
cutting into the enemy as keenly as any
sword, and the ruddy glow of his
mirth kindling good cheer over all the
land on many a grim day when it was
a hard thing to be had on his side of
the fight."

By heritage, Francis Hopkinson was
endowed with a broad, keen intellect
and virile energy of action. His father,
Thomas Hopkinson, well educated in
London in law and science, came to
America in 1731. Ten years later he
was the successor of Andrew Hamil-
ton as judge of the Vice- Admiralty
for Pennsylvania, a judicial position
later occupied by his. son. The elder
Hopkinson, wise and skilful in law and
procedure, a member of the Provincial
Council, combined, with his legal
tastes, an interest in science which was
both progressive and productive. In
1743 he was the first president of the
American Philosophical Society, whose
anniversaries are still worthily cele-
brated at Philadelphia. With Benja
min Franklin and Richard Peters, he

289

290

FRANCIS HOPKINSON

was one of the foster-fathers of the
College of Philadelphia, the nucleus
of the later University of Pennsylva-
nia. Among tributes to his scientific
practicality is this direct testimony
from Benjamin Franklin : "The power
of points to throw off the electric fire
was first communicated to me by my
ingenious friend, Mr. Thomas Hop-
kinson, since deceased, whose virtues
and integrities, in every situation of
life, public and private, will ever make
his memory dear to those who knew
him and knew how to value him."

As in many another biographical
record, the early love for poetry and
encouragement in authorship came to
the younger Hopkinson from his
mother's inherited and cultivated love
for literature. When the father died
in 1 75 1, leaving a large family and a
limited income to the careful manage-
ment of his young wife, Francis, the
eldest child, was fourteen years old.
To his education his mother gave her
most inspiring and assiduous efforts.
Entering the College of Philadelphia
at sixteen years, his name is on the list
of the first class, to be graduated in
1757, including some men of renown
in law, medicine and the church,—-
Hugh Williamson, Jacob Duche, Paul
Jackson, James Latta, John Morgan
and Samuel Magaw. In the "Penn-
sylvania Magazine of History and
Biography," Volume II, is an interest-
ing paper upon Rev. Jacob Duche, the
classmate and brother-in-law of Hop-
kinson, well recalled in history as the
first, and renegade, chaplain of Con-
gress. The nervous fear and vacilla-
tion of Duche, his recantation of po-
litical opinions, when the British troops
entered Philadelphia, his letter to
Washington, urging his allegiance to

the Crown, and his escape to London
with Cornwallis, to beg pardon for his
earlier apostasy, are well known and
dramatic incidents in the history of
that decade. In some correspondence
between Washington and Francis
Hopkinson, relative to Duche's treason
and his later request for reinstatement
in Philadelphia, the kind, just insight
of Washington was disclosed in the
words, "I am still willing to suppose
that it was dictated rather by his fears
than by his real sentiments." In a let-
ter from Hopkinson to Duche are ex-
pressions of sad shame and remon-
strance, mingled with a gentleness and
loyalty most typical of his nature: "1
tremble for you, for my good sister,
and her little family, I tremble for your
personal safety. Be assured I write
this from true brotherly love. Our in-
timacy has been of a long duration,
even from our early youth ; and so
long have the sweetness of your man-
ners and the integrity of your heart
fixed my affections."

Choosing his father's profession as
his own, Francis Hopkinson spent the
years immediately after college in the
law office of Benjamin Chew, the
famous Attorney-General of the Prov-
ince. In 1 761 he was admitted to prac-
tice, and the same year received his
initial political appointment as secre-
tary of the conference between the
Governor and the Indians of the
Lehigh Valley. Some incidents of
this affair are preserved in his poem,
"The Treaty." Already his ability to
rhyme had won him college distinc-
tions. Among early poetic ventures
are stanzas on Wolfe and the vic-
tories of 1758 and two dialogues and
odes composed, both words and music,
for the commencement exercises of his

FRANCIS HOPKINSON

291

college in 1761 and 1762. In view of
the later caustic zeal of his pen againsf
England and its unjust monarch, there
is interest in these youthful lines com-
memorative of the accession of George
III:

"Thrice happy monarch! skill'd in every

art
To win a nation's smile', and fix their

love,
Thy youthful blossoms are the earnests

sure
Of future glories to thy native land.
Hence in the mighty rolls of British fame,
Thy reign shall shine, distinguished with

the rest
By deeds of valour, piety and love.

Chorus.
Let the tuneful chorus join,
And high their voices raise,
To celebrate in notes divine,
The British monarch's praise."

Like many another young lawyer,
Francis Hopkinson found time to cul-
tivate his tastes for music, science and
literature, without any serious loss to
his legal duties. He was among the
pioneer teachers of "the art of psalm-
ody," at Christ Church and St. Peter's
in Philadelphia. Some of his earlier
compositions for voice and harpsichord
were collected and published in 1788.
They are interesting and available for
examination at libraries where are pre-
served the rare beginnings in national
music and verse. The dedication to
Washington is graceful and testi-
mental: "Sir, — I embrace with heart-
felt satisfaction every opportunity that
offers of recognizing the personal
friendship that hath so long persisted
between us. With respect to the little
work, which I now have the honour to
present to your notice, I can only" say
that it is such as a Lover not a Master
of the Arts can furnish. I am neither

a professional poet, nor a professional
musician ; and yet venture to appear in
those characters united ; for which, I
confess, the censure of Temerity may
justly be brought against me. — How-
ever small the Reputation may be that
I shall derive from this work, I cannot,
I believe, be refused the Credit of
being the first native of the United
States, who has produced a musical
composition. If this attempt should
not be too severely treated, others may
be encouraged to enter on a path, yet
untrodden in America, and the Arts
•in succession will take root and
flourish amongst us." Among the
songs here included are many of the
long-ago love-lays, sentimental pic-
tures of the teary, blushing maidens,
beneath the weeping willows.
Devotion to the Muses, however,

292

FRANCIS HOPKINSON

could not alone satisfy the aspirations
of a vigorous, zealous temperament.
As clients came slowly and efforts to
gain Provincial office brought no re-
sponse, Hopkinson gladly accepted the
invitation of his friend and benefactor,
Redmond Conyngham, to sail in his
private ship to London in 1766. Here
he hoped to obtain favor from Frank-
lin and some official recognition
through his English relative, the
Bishop of Worcester. Franklin, how-
ever, had gone to Germany, and
though the young man was kindly re-
ceived by his kinsmen and dined with
notables, including Benjamin West
and Lord North, he sought in vain a
Crown appointment on the Board of
Commissioners of Customs for the
Colonies. The repeal of the Stamp
Act had left a bevy of Royalist office-
holders to whom the first positions
must be given by the home govern-
ment. Apparently, Hopkinson had not
been deeply stirred, as yet, by any op-
position or defiance to English rule.
After his return to America, Lord
North, in attestation of his personal
friendliness and Hopkinson's loyalty,
appointed him collector of customs at
Newcastle in 1772, and, two years
later, he was a member of the Provin-
cial Council.

While in England, as his stanzas
testify, his heart had been mildly
stirred by the charms of "fair Myr-
tilla," but two years later he had re-
covered sufficiently to sing the praises
of—

"Delia, my soul's best treasure,
Delia, pride of Borden's Hill."

This later amorata was Ann Borden,
granddaughter of the founder of Bor-
dentown, New Jersey, whom he mar-

ried in 1768. From this event dates
his association with the history of New
Jersey, for he passed the major part of
the year in Bordentown until 1774,
when he moved his permanent resi-
dence there. The influence of this
changed environment was potent in
gaining him social and legal position
and also in inciting and fostering
within him the rapidly increasing re-
bellion against England and nascent
hopes for independence. In 1776 he
resigned his place on the Provincial
Council to accept membership in Con-
gress from New Jersey. The Borden
family were ardent patriots. A graphic
story is related of the burning of their
luxurious mansion by the lawless
British troops passing through the
town, en route for Philadelphia.
Madam Borden, a grand lady of the
old school, had her chair placed op-
posite her home and watched its rare
treasures perish in the flames. A Brit-
ish officer, in amazement and quasi-
shame, approached and, mentioning
his own mother, expressed sympathy
and regret. He received the astound-
ing reply, "This is the happiest day of
my life, sir." "Indeed, madam, how
can that be?" was his natural inquiry.
Again, in proud, patriotic spirit, came
the response, "Because the very fact of
your burning the chief houses con-
vinces me that you find it impossible
to conquer our. people, or you would
not so ruthlessly destroy such prop-
erty."

As a member of the Continental
Congress, Francis Hopkinson was
among that noted coterie of men whose
brains constructed and whose hands
signed America's most famous herit-
age, the Declaration of Independence,
"the stately and passionate chant of

ca^bilft Ibbabfencc mourn,oo Joy flail fistic oh tM, on (13 my Love re lorn, H« af Vd aeforbU Bridc,aod amy Vowt be

One tittle raootb was paft
And who fo blcft «s we •,

Tbc fuamons came at la^i
2, And Jemmy mafi to fei .
I ft« bis fbip fo ,g»y
Swift fly t be wave void ili«
1 »if>'d ir.y le»f* away _
*:id f»w his fbip no mors

When elowds Chut in the fly
fcnd ftoro* around mc bowl.
When, livid Hftbtningifly
And threatning tbuadcrl roll,
Ml bopei«f reft are loft,
No flOmbcfs vifit rai2'j, . *
My anxious thoughts arc toft
Vith Jeqimy oaihc.fea..

One^of Hopkwson's Songs, Arranged for the Harpsichord

human freedom." On November 18,
of that memorable year, he was ap-
pointed by Congress "to execute the
business of the Navy," under the di-
rection of the Marine Committee.
Thus early were his services enlisted
and his zeal aroused. Writing to Dr.
Coale of Baltimore, he said: "If my
poor abilities can be of the least ser-
vice to my country in her day of trial,
I shall not complain of the hardship
of the task. Our troops are heartv
and eager for action and full' of spir-
its, animated, I really believe, by the
spirit of patriotism."

One of the most marked proofs of
the aphorism, "The pen is mightier
than the sword," with a new interpre-
tation, came during those crucial years
in American history from 1774 to
1776, when the doctrine of nullification
and resistance became transformed, by

logical steps, into the conviction and
declaration of independence as the
only hopeful outcome of the struggle
against England. Here families and
friends divided in sincere, yet often
bitter, differences of opinion. Out-
wardly, affairs seemed still capable of
pacific settlement. Some concessions
had been gained, others seemed proba-
ble. To break away from the father-
land, still dear and revered, even in its
tyranny, to conceive of a federation of
these distinctive colonies as the germ
of a possible nation, seemed to many
Whigs, who had persistently resisted
England's demands, rank treason or
the vision of deluded fanatics. The
history of these years presents forcibly
the influence of keen, patient legisla-
tors, of eloquent preachers, but, yet
more distinctly, the incisive and pene-
trative agency of the wits, pamphlet-

293

294

FRANCIS HOPKINSON

eers and satirists in evolving and com-
pleting the work of secession and in-
dependence.

Among the earliest and most popu-
lar writings of this type were two by
Francis Hopkinson, still familiar and
quotable to-day, "A Pretty Story" and
"A Prophecy." In September, 1774,
the Continental Congress was con-
vened at Carpenter's Hall, Philadel-
phia, "to consult upon the present state
of the colonies, and the miseries to
which they are and must be reduced- —
and to deliberate and determine upon
wise and proper measures to be by
them recommended to all the colonies,
for the recovery and establishment of
their just rights and liberties, civil and
religious, and the restoration of union
and harmony between Great Britain
and the colonies, most ardently desired
by all good men." Simultaneous with
this was the issuance and rapid sale
in Philadelphia of a neat, playful little
volume, "A Pretty Story, written in
the year of our Lord, 1774, by Peter
Grievous, Esq. A. B. C. D. E. Veluti
in Speculo." Here, under clever alle-
gory and illustration, was pictured the
existent condition in "The New
Farm," or America, under the neglect-
ful and oppressive treatment of the old
nobleman upon the "Old Farm," Eng-
land. The Parliament, under guise of
the Nobleman's wife, with "her avari-
cious eye," Jack, the American colo-
nist, the revenue extortions, the Stamp
Act, the tea duty, the war vessels in
Boston harbor, — such incidents came
within the apt, allegorical panorama.
With raillery and irony, that never be-
came invective yet reached greater
effect by their restraint, the author in-
terwove derision and argument, and,
beneath the witticism, the readers rec-

ognized the force and justice of the
presentation. With clever, prophetic
enigma the allegory closes: "These
harsh and unconstitutional proceed-
ings irritated Jack and the other in-
habitants of the new farm to such a
degree that — coetera desunt"

Even in those days of slow travel
"A Pretty Story" soon found its way
into the Eastern states where its allu-
sions to Boston and her trials gave it
immediate popularity. Though pub-
lished as "Peter Grievous," the author
was soon known to be Francis Hop-
kinson. Less acrimonious than Fre-
neau or Trumbull, from the first he
won popular response by his ingen-
ious allegories and conceits, replete
with wit and raillery. His "Transla-
tion of a Letter Written by a For-
eigner in his Travels" in 1776, a cut-
ting satire on English provincialism
and misrule, was instrumental in
quietly removing many a veil of illu-
sion from the minds of doubtful
Whigs, who still revered and extolled
their home-land as the greatest coun-
try in the world. With humorous
lampoons and mild exaggerations,
this visiting foreigner sees with aston-
ishment, and arraigns with gentle
ridicule the provincialism and retro-
gression of England, — "In a word,
contradiction and absurdity make an
Englishman."

Throughout the career of Francis
Hopkinson, in statecraft and letters
alike, one notes the poise, the lack of
virulence, the cautious and logical
progress of his ideas and messages
on national questions. During the
months prior to the final Declaration,
while arguments and remonstrances
were besieging the leaders of the se-
cessionists, while the more earnest

FRANCIS HOPKINSON

295

denouncers were deploring "treason-
ous measures" and the more timid
questioners feared and prayed in un-
certainty, two pamphlets wielded a
marked influence in behalf of inde-
pendence and won over to its side
many fearful and vacillating colonists.
"Common Sense," the forceful and
timely pamphlet of Thomas Paine and
the tract by Hopkinson, "A Prophe-
cy," had great influence in promoting
severance of the ties and the establish-
ment of America's freedom. Hopkin-
son's brief allegory, in Biblical form,
was a direct answer to the famous
"Letters of Cato to the People of
Pennsylvania," printed weekly from
March 13 to April 24, 1776, and voic-
ing the strong fears and protests of
Rev. William Smith, provost of the
College of Philadelphia. While this
"Cato" had been an ardent opposer of
unjust taxation and other measures of
oppression, he urged vehemently the
refusal of Congress to give sanction
to the Declaration of Independence.
The answer, in this "Prophecy," writ-
ten in Hopkinson's restrained and
semi-humorous tone, was in form and
phraseology of some long-ago prophet
who saw and depicted the exciting and
controversial scenes of that time and
uttered his oracular vision.

Under the imagery of a tree,
planted in a far country, by the king
of many islands, a tree that for a
long time was fruitful, he described
the growth of the colonies and their
benefit to the king. "The North
wind," however, blasted in time the
tree and broke its branches. Then shall
arise a certain prophet (Franklin),
"and he shall wear spectacles upon
his nose and reverence and esteem
shall rest upon his brow." He urges

that the tree be hewn down and a
new, vigorous sapling, of their own
planting and care, be substituted
therefor. In opposition to such ad-
vice, however, were the words of one
Cato, urging trust in the rotten tree
and offering bribes and promises.
He is not hearkened to, however, for
"the people shall root up the rotten
tree, and in its place they shall plant
a young and vigorous tree, and shall
effectually defend it from the winds
of the North by an high wall. And
they shall dress it and prune it, and
cultivate it to their own liking. And
the young tree shall grow and flour-
ish and spread its branches far
abroad; and the people shall dwell
under the shadow of its branches, and
shall become an exceeding great, and
powerful, and happy nation."

When the war was actual rather
than imminent, the zeal and service
of Hopkinson increased yearly. With
all diligence and efficiency, he per-
formed the duties associated with
equipment of the navy and was also
treasurer of the Continental loan of-
fice. In 1779, he received an appoint-
ment as judge of the Court of the
Admiralty, a position filled with honor
and trust for ten years, until the of-
fice was succeeded by that of a con-
stitutional judgeship, to which he was
promoted by Washington in 1789,
and- in which he continued until his
death. There was, however, a con-
stant need of his wit, as well as his
intellectual and legal training, in the
service of his country during these
years of long-deferred victory. It is
difficult for us to realize to-day the
incentive for patriotism inspired by
the writings of this early time, which
seem to us, removed from the en-

296

FRANCIS HOPKINSON

vironment, amusing and somewhat
crude, rather than potent. This was
before the days of critical literary
analysis, it was an era of tense, ener-
gizing conflict of opinion, and the
sincerity and force of argument, the
deep patriotism of Hopkinson were
revealed through the satiric essays
and the light, doggerel verse. Som~
of his compositions would easily meet
the tests of criticism, — the severe, dig-
nified "Letter to Lord Howe," after
the devastating march of the British
troops through New Jersey in 1776,
the caustic strictures upon the Loyal-
ists and their printer, Rivington, the
pungent and graphic songs for camp
and march, — such varied pen-patriot-
ism revealed a versatile, keen and
potent mind. In The Pennsylvania
Packet, under signatures of "Cala-
mus," "Cautious," "One of the Peo-
ple" and other nommes de guerre, he
published many of these essays and
verses ; and though research has iden-
tified most of these, doubtless a few
are still unattributed with certainty.
In a copy of The Pennsylvania
Packet, for February 9, 1782, I
found, under the letters "F. H.," one
of his most trenchant and less familiar
attacks upon Rivington and his adhe-
rents. So scathing and Rabellaian
was the entire tone of this communi-
cation that it gave credence to the
suggestion that, in collecting and pub-
lishing his writings after the war had
long been ended, he greatly modified
the vehemence of some of the original
tracts. An excerpt will indicate the
pungent answer to the supporter
of Rivington: "If my antagonist
chuses to skulk behind a dunghill, the
laws of literary war do not call upon
me to follow him into all the filth he

is willing to wade through — As to
Monsieur Rivington, I thought the
man had sold off his trumpery and
gone to England : agreeably to his ad-
vertisement. But I find by three and
twenty advertisements in his paper of
the 26th, which I have to-day taken
pains to count, that he is still in New
York, — unless he has told three and
twenty lies in one paper — a thing not
unlikely."

Less corrosive and more typical of
his convincing, yet restrained method
is the familiar tract, "A Political
Catechism," issued in 1777 after
Washington's success at Trenton and
the apparent collapse of the English
commanders. Contrasting the pam-
pered Royalists with the American
general, he extols Washington in
words of lofty hero-worship: "Who
has the chief command of the Ameri-
can army?

"His Excellency General Washing-
ton.

"What is. his character?

"To him the title of Excellency is
applied with peculiar propriety. He
is the best and greatest man the world
ever knew. He retreats like a General
and attacks like a Hero. Had he lived
in the days of idolatry, he had been
worshipped as a God. One age can-
not do justice to his merit; but a
grateful posterity shall, for a succes-
sion of ages, remember the great de-
liverer of his country."

Hopkinson's loyalty to his chief
and his cause does not seem to have
been mere adulation or an appeal for
patronage. It was the spontaneous
expression of a stanch courage and
helpful spirit. His verses were de-
signed to encourage and inspirit the
troops, especially in times of gloom.

BATTLE OF THE KEGS.

**&

GALL ANTS attend, and hear a friend,
Trill forth harmonious ditty :
Strange things Til tell, which late befet

In Philadelphia city.
Twas early day, as poets fay,
Juft wheo the fun was rifin g,
A foldier flood, on log of wood,

And law a fight furprifing.
As in a mase, he Sood to g&ase,

The truth can't be deoy'd, fir>
He fpy'd a fcore —of kegs, or more.

Come floating dnwn the tide, fir* *
A failor too, in jerkin blue, .

The ftrange appearance viewing,
Firft damn'd his eyes, in great furprife.

Then faid iome mifchiets brewing.
Tfeefc kegs no* hold the rebels bold,
S*ack'd up like pickled herring . -
And they're come down t'attack the towfij

la this new way of ferrying. -
The foldier flew, the failor too,

And, fcar'd almoft to death, fir,
Wore out their (hoes, to fpread the news,^

And ran till out of breath, fir.
Now up and down, throughout the town,

Moft frantic fcenes were acted :
And Come ran here, and fame ran there
Like men almoft diftra&cd. ....

|t Some fire cry'd, which fome deny'd,
But £iid the earth had quaked :
And girls and boys, With hideous noife,

.Ran through the town half naked.
Sir Wtiliaoa he, (hug as a flea,
Lay all this time a fnoring,
Nor dreamt of harm, as he lay warm
In bed with Mrs. L — —.5.
'.■* Now in affright, he ftarts upright,
AwakM by fuclt a clatter $
JHe rubs both eyes, k*d boldly cries,

"For God'i fake what's the, matter V*
At his bed fide, be then efpy'd
SirEriklas at command, 6r,

Upon one foot he had one boot,

And t'other io his hand, fir.
Arife I arife 1 Sir Erfkine cries t

The rebels— rnore's the pity— .
Without a boat, are all on float,

Arad rang'd before the city.
The motly crew, in veflels new,.

With latan for their guide, fir,
Pack'd up in bags, or wooden kegs,'

Come driving down the tide, fir*
Therefore prepare for bloody war 5

Thefe kegs muft all be routed ,
Or furcly we defpis'd (halt be,

And Britilh .courage doubted*
The royal band now ready ftand,

Ali rang'd in dread array, fir,
With ftomach flout, to fee it out,

And make a bloody day, fir.
The Cannons roar, from Chore to fltore %

The fmall arms make a rattle t
Since wars began, I'm fure no'man

E'er faw fo llrange a battle.
The fi'fh below fwam to and fro,

Attack'd from ev'ry quarter >
Why fure, thought they, the devil's to pay!

'Mongft folks above the water.
Thefe kegs, 'tis faid, tho* ftrongly made.

Of rebel ftaves and hoops, fir,
Could not oppofe their pow'rful foes,

The conq'ring Britilh troops, fir.
From morn to night, thefe men of might

Difplayd amazing courage;
And when the fun was fairly down,

Retir'd to fup their porridge:
ad hundred men with each a pea, _

Or more upon my word, nr,
tt is mo ft true, would be too few.

Their valour to record, fir.
Such, feats did they perform that day

.Upon thefe wicked kegs, fir,
Tiat years to come, if they get aome,

They'U make their bos^s aad brags, fir*

L_* --'-j.- - •

The most familiar of these war lyrics
are the "Camp Ballad" and "The Bat-
tle of the Kegs." The former, writ-
ten in 1777, was well adapted to mar-
tial steps and was a favorite song
throughout the war; the strains were
invigorating and hearty:

"To arms, then, to arms! 'tis fair freedom
invites us:

The trumpet still sounding to battle ex-
cites us;

Our cause we'll support, for 'tis just and

'tis glorious,
When men fight for freedom, they must
be victorious."
The story of "The Battle of the
Kegs" has become a part of Ameri-
can history and native humor. The
ingenious device of the kegs, floated

297

298

FRANCIS HOPKINSON

down the Delaware to annoy and de-
ceive the lethargic British troops at
Philadelphia, would have been only a
transitory incident in the war without
the clever recital in Hopkinson's bal-
lad. Not alone did he construct a
lightsome, rollicking song to cheer
the wearied soldiers at the time, but
he has immortalized Yankee ingenu-
ity versus British obtuseness, in
verses which will ever be recalled at
mention of the war. He prefaced the
publication of the ballad by a prose
narrative of the same event in the
New Jersey Gazette, January 21,
1778. The appearance of the stanzas
following it met instant response and
the jolly raillery was recited and sung,
published in journals and on broad-
sides, throughout the colonies. De-
spite the literary flimsiness there is a
pictorial effectiveness and a rhythmic
swing to the stanzas, even recalled in
disjointed portions :

"These kegs now hold the rebels bold,
Packed up like pickled herring;
And they've come down to attack the
town,
In this new way of ferrying."

"Now up and down throughout the town,
Most frantic scenes were acted;
And some ran here and some ran there,
Like men almost distracted."

"Such feats did they perform that day,
Against these wicked kegs, sir,
That years to come, if they get home,
They'll make their boasts and brags,
sir."

Of this ballad, full of ridicule,
keen and stinging, Professor Tyler
has said: "To the cause of the
Revolution, it was perhaps worth
as much, just then, by way of
emotional tonic and of military in-
spiration, as the winning of a con-

siderable battle would have been."
After the end of the war, during
the years of later manhood, in varied
writings and inventions revealing his
progressive ideas and tastes, Francis
Hopkinson was ever alert with logic
and wit to serve his country in her
slightest need. In 1787, his wisdom
and training were instrumental in
framing the new Constitution, while
his skill in witty allegory was utilized
for the same cause. "The New Roof"
was a popular and influential argu-
ment for the Federation, proposed by
the Pennsylvania Convention. Hop-
kinson's literary presentation of this
cause was by a combined prose alle-
gory and a vigorous, merry song. As
raison d'etre for the new Constitution
versus the old Confederation, he cites,
t. "That the whole fabric was too
weak." 2. "That there were indeed
thirteen rafters ; but that these rafters
were not connected by any braces or
ties, so as to form a union of
strength." 3. "That some of these
rafters were too thick and heavy,
and others too slight; and as the
whole had been put together whilst
the timber was yet green, some had
been warped outwards, and of course
sustained an undue proportion of
weight, whilst others, warping in-
wards, had shrunk from bearing any
weight at all." 4. "That the roof was
so flat as to admit the most idle ser-
vants in the family, their playmates
and acquaintances, to trample upon
and abuse it." The song with which
this allegory closes is virile and pic-
torial, as a single stanza will evidence :

"Up! up! with the rafters; each frame is

a state:
How nobly they rise! their span, too, how
great!

FRANCIS HOPKINSON

299

From the north to the south, o'er the

whole' they extend,
And rest on the walls whilst the walls they

defend:
For our roof we will raise, and our song

still shall be,
Combined in strength, yet as citizens

free."
Francis Hopkinson was essentially
representative of his own age, one of
its most influential leaders, while in
gifts and aspirations he seemed often
in advance of that pioneer time. As
lawyer and judge he was astute and
liberal and his decisions have been
often cited with respect by latter-day
jurists. In the third volume of his
"Miscellaneous Writings" are several
detailed judgments on important cases
during his service from 1778- 1 791.
As an interesting side-light in his his-
tory, I have found a careful presenta-
tion by his son of "The Impeachment
and Trial of Francis Hopkinson,
Judge of the Admiralty, November,
1780." He seemed, thus early, to
have been a victim of a disappointed,
malevolent officeseeker, who brought
against him charges of accepting
bribes, gifts, etc. The trial was con-
ducted with all vigilance and the re-
sult was an acquittal. "Upon the
whole, we are unanimously of opinion
that the judge ought to be acquitted
upon all the three charges." This
brief episode in his career had no in-
jurious effect upon his reputation for
integrity or judicial efficiency. In
1784, recorded in the third volume of
Jefferson's Letters, was his recom-
mendation of Hopkinson as director
of the mint, "as a man of genius, gen-
tility and great merit — as capable of
the office as any man I know and
•the appointment would give general
pleasure because he is generally es-

teemed." Five years later, as noted,
he was given a judgeship by Wash-
ington with the following dignified
expression of confidence: "In my
nomination of Persons to fill offices in
the Judicial Department, I have been
guided by the importance of the ob-
ject,— considering it as of the first
magnitude as the Pillar upon which
our political fabric must rest. I have
endeavoured to bring into the offices
of its administration such characters
as will give stability and dignity to
our National Government."

With a keen brain, which could de-
vise ridicule and satire in a cause for
his country, with a zealous and brave
spirit, which heralded all nascent
progress for American liberty, Hop-
kinson was never scurrilous nor vin-
dictive. His temperamental gentle-
ness was evidenced in the story of the
mouse that daily hied forth from its
unmolested fortress to share his
meals, even as flocks of pigeons
greeted his home-coming with inti-
mate, loving comradeship. In circles
of politics, education or society, he
was warmly welcomed. Small and
unique in figure, he was poised, alert
and strong in mind, with a heart and
soul true and co-operative in all high
endeavor. John Adams's portrait of
him, in a letter to his wife after his
first meeting with Hopkinson, is fa-
miliar yet noteworthy: "He is one of
your pretty, little, curious, ingenious
men. His head is not bigger than a
large apple, yet he is genteel and well-
bred and very social." Reference is
also made by Adams to the liberal
education of his new acquaintance and
"his skill as a painter and a poet."

Francis Hopkinson was not alone
a dilettante in the embryonic arts

300

FRANCIS HOPKINSON

of literature, music and painting
among Americans, but he was, also,
an earnest and inventive student of
the scanty scientific knowledge then
obtainable, and a fearless, constructive
critic of the decadent scholastic meth-
ods of education then in vogue. His
" Specimen of a Collegiate Examina-
tion," with its "salt-box" formulas, is
clever anathema on the teaching of
the times. With inventive, parody,
he treats the "salt-box" under the
heads of Metaphysics, Logic, Natural
Philosophy, Anatomy, Chemistry,
etc., revealing the dry, stilted meth-
ods of education and indulging in
such extreme classifications as these:

Professor — "What is the salt called
with respect to the box?"

Student — "It is called its con-
tents."

Professor — "And why so?"

Student — "Because the cook is
content, quoad hoc, to find plenty of
salt in the box."

Professor — "You are very right;
let us now proceed to Logic. How
many parts are there in a salt-box?"

Student — "Three : bottom, top and
sides."

Professor — "How many modes are
there in a salt-box?"

Student — "Four : the formal, the
substantial, the accidental and the
topsy-turvy."

The scurrilous and sensational tone
of many journals of his time aroused
his witty ridicule in "A Plan for the
Improvement of the Art of Paper
War." As one reads his trenchant
satire on more emphas'is to be gained
by means of diverse type, from "Five-
Line Pica," to "French Canon," it
would seem indeed a prophetic vision
of these later days of flaring.

head-lines and flamboyant style.
Behind his ridicule and sarcasm
lurked ever an earnest aspiration
for reform. In many instances he
was the forerunner of progressive
methods and aspirations. In the lines
commemorative of his death by John
Swanwick, is a significant stanza in
personal allusion:

"Ye city trees, protect your patron's

grave;
He once from ruin saved your leafy

charms,
Then to his honor bid your green tops

wave,
And fold his urn in your embracing

arms."

This stanza bears direct reference to
the forceful remonstrance by Hopkin-
son in April, 1782, when an act was
passed directing that all the Philadel-
phia trees should be cut down and re-
moved for fear of fire and stagnation
of air. With the knowledge of a later
age, Hopkinson made his famous plea
in the Pennsylvania Gazette, — "A
Speech of a Standing Member." As
one of his minor and fugitive writ-
ings, this jeu d'esprit is meagrely
known, but, in style and thought, it
deserves remembrance amonghis best
non-political efforts. With force,
this "standing member," dubbed in
derision "the wooden member," utters
his plea as a citizen : "The same divine
hand that formed you formed us also.
The same elements that nourish you,
nourish us. Like you, we die and re-
turn to the earth from which we
sprang; and then the wisest amongst
you cannot distinguish between the
dust of an elm and that of an em-
peror." After dwelling upon both
the scenic and the sanitary results of
foliage, he closed with this question:

The Hopkinson House, Bordentown, N. J.

"And will you then, oh guardian of
the people ! will you by a fatal decree
banish from amongst you, those salu-
tary citizens to whom you are so much
indebted for the blessings of health,
without which every other blessing
loses its value? And what advantage
do you propose to yourselves by such
a measure? Your streets and alleys,
indeed, will not be obstructed by trees,
but they may be obstructed by length-
ened funerals and mournful proces-
sions." In a careful essay he out-
lined an ingenious devise for improv-
ing orthography on the principle of
wave-lines, and, again, would apply
"Surveying to Portrait-Painting." In
the Columbian Magazine, May, 1787,
are noted "Improvements on Quilling
a Harpsichord," while he designed
and illustrated in detail and ensemble
an original device for a "candle-

case." Ingenious is the relevant word
to apply to many of his practical and
literary devices, yet often they are
predictive of later progress. In his
"Improved Plan for Education," he
suggests the purchase of twenty acres
of land whereon may be taught, by
illustration, natural philosophy and
the sciences of astronomy, navigation,
etc. He would also call in the aid of
games, marbles, wickets, bandy, as
educative media. While some of his
ideas seem fantastic to us, they were
indicative of the progressive mind
and prophetic of the experimental
methods of modern education. Be-
hind all his unique conceits was a
well-trained mind. When the British
troops devastated Bordentown and
his wife's ancestral home, his house
was saved by a strange incident,
closely related to his scholarship and

301

302

FRANCIS HOPKINSON

ingenuity. The torch had been
touched to the outside of the house,
when the captain of the Hessians,
one Ewald, entered the library and,
amazed at the books, the scientific ap-
paratus and mechanical designs, ex-
tinguished the flames and saved the
house. Within a volume of Provost
Smith's "Discourses," this hostile, yet
educated, captain wrote beneath his
seal: "This man was one of the
greatest rebels, nevertheless, if we
dare to conclude from the Library and
Mechanical and Mathematical Instru-
ments, he must have been a very
learned man."

In history the name of Francis
Hopkinson will be associated with his
services to freedom and federalism.
He would have won honor in any age
as jurist and wit. With a cleverness
of characterization not unworthy of
Congreve or Swift, with satire and
parody akin to Pope and Addison, he
had the sincerity of a strenuous
reformer and the insight of a true,
though untrained, poet.

The "Ode to Music" echoes a poet's
yearning and responsiveness to even
the crude music of that earlier age
and province. Among his lyrics, on
other than military themes, with the
words and tune of his own composi-
tion, one has survived with its melodv

and exhilaration, the familiar hunting-
song :

"O'er the hills far away at the birth of the

morn,
I hear the full tone of the sweet sound-
ing horn,
The sportsmen with shouting, all hail

the new day,
And swift run the hounds o'er the hills

far away.
Across the deep valley their course they

pursue,
And rush through the thickets yet

silver'd with dew,
Nor fences nor ditches their speed can

delay,
Still sounds the sweet horn o'er the hills

far away."

When, in 1791, Francis Hopkinson,
still in the vigor of later manhood,
died suddenly of apoplexy, he left to
his five children a memory of noble,
skilful, patriotic service. His son,
Joseph, inheriting the love and facility
for verse, no less than the more ear-
nest zeal, has contributed to our na-
tional songs the immortal "Hail,
Columbia! Happy land!" Wherever
the literary history of America is re-
called, in coalescence with our nation-
al development from Colonial through
Revolutionary to democratic govern-
ment, the name and work of Francis
Hopkinson will be accorded due re-
membrance as legislator, jurist, satir-
ist and patriot poet.

.^Sjpbnn^:

The Legendary Plav of Rothenburg

By Charlton L. Edholm

ON the Bavarian boundary, not
far from Niirnberg, lies
what is doubtless the most
complete and harmonious bit
of the Middle Ages to be found in all
Germany to-day, the whilom Free City
of the Empire, Rothenburg ob der
Tauber. , In seclusion from the artifi-
cial life of our century, and without
the commercial or manufacturing in-
terests which, in other cities, afford
harsh contrasts to the traces of other
times, this old town preserves a unity
of mediaeval impression in its architec-
ture, its customs and the simple life of
its folk which, elsewhere, is hardly to
be found. For more than a thousand
years Rothenburg has played an im-
portant part in German history and,
truly, one who, from the valley of the
Tauber, looks up to the massive walls
that still encircle it, and counts the
many towers that once defended it,
can understand how such a stronghold
could for centuries have maintained its
own against the Huns, the Suabians
and the barbarian warriors , of the
dark ages, a veritable city of refuge.

A fragment from the castle of the
counts of that ilk, that was built in
the seventh century, still remains
perched on the narrow, precipitous
tongue of rock, about which glides the
stream far below, and near this ruin
but separated from it by high * gates
and towers, stands the city, pro-
tected on three sides by the steep

banks of the Tauber, which rise
to its walls, and on its more exposed
sides by deep moats, partly filled with
water, and by heavy fortifications. So
stands Rothenburg, like Jerusalem : a
city that is set on a hill and which
cannot be hid.

The city wall is in its original con-
dition with a covered passage along
the top, open on the side toward the
town, while on the other are many
arrow slits and tower windows from
which one has charming views far
into the surrounding country. One
can walk along this passage about

304

ROTHENBURG'S LEGENDARY PLAY

three-quarters of the way around the
city, getting the most intimate insight
of little, high-walled flower gardens
and courtyards ; looking over jumbled
roofs, into whose gable windows one
takes a sly peep here and there, and
down strange perspectives of streets
and lanes, which usually lead the eye
to the exquisite Gothic spires of' the
church and Rathhaus and to the fan-
tastic row of towers on the opposite
side of the city.

It is an old saying that Rothen-
burg had as many of these towers as
there are weeks in the year, and it is
characteristic of the citizens that they
have always had understanding and
love for the works of their forefathers,
which is one of the reasons why so
much has been preserved to us. That
this was a cultured and art-loving, as
well as a wealthy city is proven by
the fine architecture and tasteful or-
nament which remain in abundance.
In wandering through the humbler
quarters, one finds on almost every
house a bit of carving or painting; a

motto or a guild shield, for the baker
displays his rampant lions supporting
a pretzel as proudly as does the patri-
cian his family arms. Especially in
the patrician houses one finds a
wealth of fanciful and yet worthy ar-
chitecture and ornament from the
Gothic straight through to the Rococo
periods, each house being individual
and characteristic yet none so eccentric
as to be undignified.

The courtyards, too, are delight-
fully quaint ; usually a veranda runs
around each story with a great dis-
play of heavy beams on which the
woodcarver has done his best work.
Still prettier it is when one finds an
old-fashioned garden in such a court,
a blossoming pear tree or lilac bush,
and prim gravel paths between the
geometrical beds of simple flowers.
Then one first has an insight and un-
derstanding of much of the German
lyric, and one recalls with new delight
the exquisite spring songs of Goethe or
passages from his idyllic "Hermann
und Dorothea." Over many of these
houses lingers the charm of history
and imagination, for many of them are
inscribed with the names of emperors
and kings who were received in them
as guests, centuries ago.

Undoubtedly the finest architectural
work in Rothenburg is the Rathhaus
or town hall, a Gothic and Renaissance
structure of remarkable dignity and
harmony, whose light, graceful tower
overlooks the whole city. In the
highest point, right under the cupola,
is a small octagonal room in which a
little gray man lives alone as in a phi-
losopher's cell, with all the world be-
low him. And like the philosopher,
it is his duty to observe and occa-
sionally to warn, for he has not only

The Rathhaus

305

306

ROTHENBURG'S LEGENDARY PLAY

the city but also a whole circle of vil-
lages, near and far, to watch and, in
case of fire, to alarm with the great
bell pendant over his roof.

The church of the Holy Ghost is a
gray, venerable edifice, lightened by
elegant flying buttresses and richly
adorned with old Gothic sculpture.
Though the two spires are of the same
general design, one is higher and
much lighter than the other ; this dif-
ference is accounted for by the follow-
ing legend : When the church was
quite built, it was thought well to
erect two towers into the blue heaven.
The master designed one, and the
other, the northern, he intrusted to a
young assistant, who completed a
work much more graceful and beauti-
ful than that of his preceptor ; the lat-
ter, in despair, and full of envy and
anger, dashed himself from his own
tower to the ground. On the south
side of the building a representation of
this tragic event is depicted.

The church possesses several fine
altars, one of which was painted by
Diirer's master, Wohlgemuth. An-
other is of stained wood, said to have
been carved by Tillmann Riemen-
schneider of Wiirzburg. It has, for a
central composition, the Last Supper,
and with clever ingenuity the windows
in the background are let into the
church wall, and being really of glass,
admit light. In the Middle Ages, pil-
grims came hither to adore the drop
of the Holy Blood, which is enclosed
in a crystal capsule, held by two an-
gels high among the intricacies of the
fantastic carving.

Among the tomb-
stones is quite an
original one : a shield
with two dice, and a
helmet which bears
as a crest two* out-
stretched hands and
arms throwing dice.
It is the monument
of Heinrich Toppler,
meaning dicer in old
German, the great
burgomaster of Roth-
whom history and
legend have had much to do. Top-
pler was an extremely influential man,
not only in the little republic of which
he was the head, but also in the other
Free Cities, and with Kaiser Wenzel,
whom he entertained in his little castle
in the valley. After Wenzel's down-
fall, the city tried to conciliate the new
Emperor Ruprecht by seizing Toppler,
his old antagonist, and trying him for
treason; for it was charged that he
had acquired his great fortune dishon-
estly, that he had held secret court of
justice in his house and had staked the
city at dice with the nobles of Nurn-

enburg, with

In the Court of the Rathhaus

307

308

ROTHENBURG'S LEGENDARY PLAY

berg. His enemies promptly declared
him guilty and sentenced him to death,
imprisoning him in a wretched little
vault under the town hall. Mean-
while his partisans had dug an under-
ground passage from his house to the
dungeon, but when they broke
through the wall it was too late.
A friend, disguised as a priest,
had brought him poison, and the
old warrior and statesman had
made his last throw with for-
tune. They found him dead. A
breach in the stone wall still shows
where his friends came to him. But
after all, one is seldom reminded of
the cruelty and gloom of the mediaeval
times, for Rothenburg has the golden
atmosphere of the age of chivalry, not
as it really was, perhaps, but as we
love to imagine it, heroic but tender
and reposeful.

There is no more idyllic spot than
about the old castle, in the garden,
overgrown with gnarled, spreading
lindens and young birch trees; fra-
grant with lilacs and apple blossoms,
and brightened with bits of meadow
full of field flowers. Here is the land
in which it seems always afternoon.
As I lie on the grass-grown parapet
I see, as in a vision, the towers of the
city of rest, aglow in the evening sun-
shine, for it seems no part of the world
in which we live, so pure it is, so still,
in its glory. And as I lie here watch-
ing, it is as if the golden spires had
voices; from their heights I hear the
sweetly solemn strains of an old Ger-
man choral, simple, pious and strong.
It fills the evening as do the last, shim-
mering rays of the western sun. Far
down the valley the shadows hover
over the river and tenderly enfold the
villages nestling in the hollows. Over

me and around me the lindens begin
to murmur lightly, so lightly; only
the dreamer knows it for a ballad that
the lindens first heard when they were
centuries younger, when they and chiv-
alry were in their first youth and here
in the old castle the splendid Hohen-
staufens held a court of knightly love
and war, where the heroes of the lance
and lyre often met in noble combat.

One day in every spring the en-
chanted city awakes. As in the fairy
tale, when the daring prince had
kissed the Sleeping Beauty, all the old
life was taken up again just where it
had stopped, so on each Whitmonday,
Rothenburg throws off its torpor an!
appears once more in old-time splen-
dor. The deserted streets now swarm
with bands of troopers in the extrava-
gant finery of the Thirty Years' War :
on the market place, pretty, demure
girls smile from the flower decked bal-
cony of the Rathhaus. Before the
portal, halberdiers pace slowly to and
fro as sentries, while in the watch-
house a whole crew of lusty rascals
drink, play cards and troll loose bal-
lads of love and battle and vagabond
camp life. In the dark alleys one sees
a flash of bright scarlet shako or has a
glimpse of mottled leopard skin : they
are the ferocious Groats and Hunga-
rians ; ugly, picturesque riders with a
mass of tangled, black hair obscuring
ruffian faces, and a painfully villanous
looking arsenal dangling about their
persons. The swashbucklers with the
glinting armor are Pappenheim's
cuirassiers, while the stout fellows in
blue and buff, with loose trousers and
flapping, plumed hats, are a detach-
ment from Gustav Adolph's Swedes,
left here in command of Cornet von

Patrician Houses, including — to the right — that of Burgomaster Toppler

509

310

ROTHENBURG'S LEGENDARY PLAY

Rinkenberg. If you would like to
know what all these swaggerers are
doing to-day in Rothenburg, come to
the council hall in the Rathhaus and
you will learn.

Austrian, Croat, Swede and Hunga-
rian mingle in all Bohemian good-fel-
lowship and empty mighty stone mugs
in emulation of the city hero ; mean-
while roaring old German catches,
dicing and flirting most outrageously
with the market women and the gypsv
girls. Amid this clatter of a thou-
sand tongues, an impromptu theatre
forms the centre of attraction for a
while. It follows the older traditions
of the stage in regard to scenery, for a
halberdier, standing motionless at one
corner of the low platform, bears on
his weapon a board with the motto,
"A street," and with a change of
scene, he reverses it that we may know
it is now "in a tavern."

In the first place it is the year of
grace 1631, and this Protestant city is
being defended by its townsmen and
a handful of Swedes from the assault
of General Tilly and the imperial
army, which is even now bombarding
the walls.

Burgomaster Bezold, after a night
of anxious watching, has called the
senate together to decide whether the
citizens shall be kept at their posts, or
whether it would not be better to sur-
render while there is hope of quarter,
and thus avoid the horrible pillage,
outrage and slaughter to which this
same Tilly has subjected their sister
city, Magdeburg, but a few months
ago. The councillors decide, how-
ever, to fight for their faith and liberty
to the end, leaving the issue with God,
so the captains are encouraged and a
new body of untried youths is sent out

with the blessing of the fathers to re-
enforce the defenders. The cannon-
ading continues to be heard from the
walls, and now messengers come fly-
ing in with breathless reports, at first
of success and then of reverse, until,
finally, Ex-Burgomaster Nusch brings
the wotst news of all. Praying alone
in the church, he had looked up and
seen with fright that on the old Top-
pier monument the eyes of the dice
were glowing in the twilight like red
coals, an omen of disaster for the city.
Trembling, he left the sanctuary, to
find the citizens worn out, the young
recruits decimated, and, worst of all,
that a cannon ball had shattered the
powder tower; so deeming further re-
sistance useless, he had hung out the
white flag.

Even as he speaks, a confusion of
noises is heard from the market place ;
clattering of horses, cries for mercv
and the heavy tramping of men in
armor. It comes nearer and nearer
till the door of the council chamber in
which we sit is thrown open and her-
alds enter, followed by a guard of
cuirassiers, chanting a grimly exultant
war song of the times.

Then comes Tilly with his staff offi-
cers.

The general, in a rage, swears that
the city of traitors shall suffer for its
stubborn resistance as has Magdeburg,
and, unmoved by the entreaties of the
women, sends for the executioner to
behead the burgomaster and the sen-
ators.

The refusal of the headsman to do
his office on his masters gains them
a little time, during which the cellar
master brings a great flagon of Tatt-
ber wine, and Tilly and his staff are
persuaded to drink, but so great is the

ROTHENBURG'S LEGENDARY PLAY

311

vessel that all of them together cannot
empty it. Mellowed by the unusual
drink, the fierce old general is in a
grimly humorous mood, and suggests
that though the Rothenburgers have
not been able to defend themselves
with their arms, he will give them a
chance to save their heads through
their stomachs. "I will spare your
lives," he continues, "if one of you will
empty this beaker at a single draught."

The senators look at each other in
dismay, for the glass holds three
quarts and more, an unheard of swal-
low even in Bavaria. Finally, though,
Ex-Burgomaster Nusch, a man of
great profundity, decides that he
would rather die as he had lived than
meet an unfamiliar and more bitter
death at the headsman's hand, so he
devoutly commits himself to God —
and drinks.

In breathless silence the council-
lors and warriors watch the flagon rise
slowly, higher and higher, till the
drinker's round, bald head disappears ;
totally eclipsed by the bottom of the
vessel. Will the liquor be drowned in
him, or will he, like poor Clarence, be
drowne.d in the wine ? The stillness
is broken only by the gurgle of the
liquid as it steadily flows into the
worthy ex-burgomaster. He stag-
gers ! but one of his colleagues sup-
ports him as, with a final effort, he
causes the last of the three quarts tj
disappear.

Like a truly great man, he has little
to say after his mighty deed, and
modestly retires into a corner. Tilly,
however, is loud in his praise and, as
he had promised, spares the city, so
the whole scene ends in a Te Deum,
and the deeply patriotic Nusch is
hailed as the savior of his country.

This is the history, inscribed in the
old chronicles, which the burghers of
Rothenburg reproduce each year, with
the most charming ingenuousness, but
by no means crudely ; for the effect of
the natural scenery, the genuine cos-
tumes, and the dusky light from the
mullioned windows is extremely real-
istic and artistic. The absence of stagi-
ness among the players is very refresh-
ing, the more so as they are saved from
awkwardness by a natural dramatic
talent : perhaps, too, the fact that their
own forefathers really lived through
these scenes makes it easier for them
to forget themselves in their roles.

Still more picturesque is the camp
life in the orchards, overlooked by the
city walls. Here tents are pitched or
hastily improvised from fir boughs,
fires are lighted, chickens are killed,
plucked and broiled, and soup is made
in great kettles that swing on poles
above the flames.

On a knoll above this motley swarm
of vagabonds is a fair pavilion for the
cavaliers and their ladies. Never were
heroes so daredevil and fascinating as
these fighting peacocks of the Thirty
Years' War, who are as proud of their
plumes and lace collars and gold em-
broidery as they are of the long,
wicked rapier that stands out at such
a defiant angle behind them. As to
their partners, it is impossible to im-
agine maidens more demure and
flower-like than these daughters of
Rothenburg, in that costume which
forms the most perfect setting to their
beauty, the style of the German Re-
naissance. Charming is the prim,
starched collar, that, surrounding a
pretty face, makes it seem rosier than
ever; the dainty cap, from under
which fall the long braids; the snug

312 IMAGINATION

bodice about the rounded form ; and there each gallant walks with his lady
the skirt, short enough that a bit of through the intricate paces, with a low
low slipper and fine white stocking bow and a sweep of his plumed hat at
looks out once in a while. On the each pause ; she lifts her skirts and
meadow lawn, under the apple bios- courtesies prettily,
soms, the Austrian trumpeters are Thus with much gayety the after-
playing a quaint old square dance, and noon passes.

. Imagination

By Charlotte Becker

1AM the flame that springs from ev'ry fire
Of youth, or skill, or genius, or of strength ;
I am the wind that smote Apollo's lyre,

And made sweet music through Eola's length.

I am the sands of ancient Egypt, where

Strange caravans pass through the warm, still
gloom ;

I am the phantom isles, the mirage fair
That lured forgotten races to their doom.

I am the waves that beat upon the shore
Of Camelot and harked to Merlin's call.

I am the cloak of darkness Siegfried bore ;
The talisman that loosed Brunhilde's thrall.

I am the fragrance of the forest trail,

The whispered voices of the trees above.

I am the heart of romance ; and the veil

That hides with tender touch the faults of love.

I steal through cities and I haunt the moor,

I draw my scarlet thread through time, unfurled ;

Though rich in gold, who knows me not is poor —
Who knows me holds in fief the whole wide world !

An Interlude

By Fannie E. Barnes

WHAT a perfect hostess
Nature is ; she never in-
sists, she suggests ;
she never commands,
she insinuates ; and thus, without the
friction of a thought, her will is yours
and your will is hers. She neither
startles you with the wonderful, nor
wearies you with the familiar. She
softens the new with one touch of
her tender and delicate hand ; and
with but a glance she casts an eternal
glory about the old. I was her guest
for one delightful midsummer day at
Windermere, and in this unfamiliar
place I learned her gentle courtesy.

The early morning had suggested
rain, but in an hour the sun was burn-
ing an avenue through the mist, and
brown butterflies were following the
delicate threads of light on the lawn.
Silently the mist withdrew and the
hills stood serene and beautiful. Be-
hind "Gummer's How" masses of
cumulus clouds were rising in titanic
columns against an arch of most
ethereal blue. Over all hung a sec-
end layer of cloud, diaphanous, and
moving softly as a breath.

The great round hills lifted their
heads to the sky like those I had
known in childhood in a valley of the
St. John River. The water, too,
washed up against the shores, filling
every little rocky curve, till the bend
in the lake shut all the world away.
And a single thought was mightier

than the great ocean that separated
me from home. Again I saw that
river, so far away, flowing softly
through the little green valley, yet
flowing with a spirit of joy in the
strength of its own motion.

Absorbed in this dear and familiar
vision I wandered happily in and
about the highway and hedges.
Through these green arcades I knew
the mistress had but lately passed,
for every leaf breathed out a richer
fragrance in its joy. The hedges of
laurel and of ivy were of every shade
of green, from the sombre color of a
wave when it has turned from the
deeper sea, to the delicate tint that
can be matched only in the evening
sky. Deeper into the lane, where the
trees met overhead, the sun had not
yet found its way, and the air was
heavy and moist. Everything was
intensely green ; even the footpath
was overgrown with a mossy verdure.
There was not a movement or a
sound, yet the silence was not that of
sleep, but of tender devotion. It was
one of Nature's sanctuaries. The
mistress was at prayers, and, at the
foot of an old and mossy elm, her
solitary candle, a spike of foxglove,
burned in the shadow! Even a bird's
chatter would have been sacrilegious
here.

I returned to the highway and fol-
lowed a stone wall enclosing a be-
lated hay-field. Brown bunches of

313

314

AN INTERLUDE

the hay were withering in the sun,
and a smell of decaying sweetness
mingled with the odor of new grass.
In a meadow beyond, cows and sheep
were feeding together, and flocks of
birds flew happily among them. The
birds called to each other in brief
gossipy trills and catches, but not a
full song fell upon my ear. I did not
wonder at this. The insistent joy of
the morning filled every fibre of my
being; there was no need of analysis
by song or word.

At length I rested by an old beech-
tree close to the water's edge. Along
the wall the honeysuckle trailed and
hung its yellow bells among the shin-
ing laurel. Away to the border of the
wood the grass was illuminated with
great clusters of white clover. The
sun was now piercing to its very
heart, and its breath flowed upon the
air a wave of protesting sweetness.
Every few hours the steamer came in
with a gay party. Long before it
appeared around the bend of the lake,
the music foretold its coming. Some-
times one of the little band of
musicians sang to the harp — a wild,
sweet melody that re-echoed through
the hills. And again, the stirring
blast of a horn from a coach of
tourists rang through the silence, as,
with song and laughter, they swept
by on the way to Ambleside. Once
a solitary pleasure-seeker in a red
boat crossed to the opposite shore;
and far away to the south many
yachts came slowly around the blue
curve of the lake, and, as in a dream,
drifted again among the clouded
mountains beyond.

Without surprise to me the mistress
of the little green sanctuary moved
across the grass. She was tall and

erect, yet she moved freely and her
body swayed like a great bough in
the wind. Her brow was broad, and
•her eye as clear as the sky after the
tempest has been driven to the
corners of the earth. Knowledge,
power, beauty and simplicity were
woven as a garment about her, yet
without fear I, too, moved freely
toward her, and our eyes met without
effort, for our stature was the same.
Without wonder or timidity we leaned
together at the roots of the old beech-
tree, and the harmony of her voice
flowed into my heart as one note fol-
lows another in a wild bird's theme.
And thus, as lovers do, without ques-
tion or surprise, our thoughts flowed
together in a mute and exquisite
communion.

"I love you, I love you, I love you.
I want to keep you with me; I dare
not breathe for fear I shall lose you!"

"How can you lose that which is a
part of you? I was the earliest pos-
session of your heart. This morning
when the mist cleared, your eye
sought. first your favorite color. You
found it in the red boats at the shore;
in the flag glowing against the sky;
in the blossoming begonias ; but it
was so as a little child ; you sat on the
floor in rapture over your little red
dress and shoes, and the color first
became to you a symbol of warmth
and brightness. Afterwards you
searched for it among the broken
dishes with which you played house;
you sought for it always in the flowers
of garden or field. What a glory the
old pasture became when, in the
autumn, the sorrel overflowed the
grass in crimson waves! Later your
joy in the color increased as your
knowledge of the sunset grew to a

AN INTERLUDE

315

permanent delight. Bedtime and sun-
set came so close together in those
days, that once you hid in the lilac-
shrubs for fear you should miss the
evening miracle. There, crowned
with purple lilac plumes, you were
safe as a queen on her throne. Above
the hills, across the river, a thread of
gold was running around each little
white cloud ; and the fir-trees began
to look very black and solemn against
the yellow light. But the golden
thread was spinning so fast it soon
ran all around the hills, and even
turned the bend in the river, till you
felt that you and the dusky shrubs
were all enclosed in the circle of gold.
But while you were following the
shining thread a wonderful thing had
happened to the clouds, for every
curling white globe had blossomed
into a blushing rose, and hung
tenderly in the garden of the sky.
And then it was you felt that strange
little desire to* cry, just because
truth had whispered to your young
heart of the power behind the light.
How exquisitely God leads a' little
child's heart to him! In all the multi-
tude of his creations there can be no
diviner joy to the great God than the
heart of a little child.

"So your first illuminating sense
of nature came through color; but
when, no higher than the great ox-
eye daisies, you walked among them
in the field, you asked a question
which it took years to answer: 'Why
do the daisies stand fast in the earth
while I am free to run as I will? Why
do they not follow me? Why do they
not speak to me?' Long afterwards,
in great timidity, you asked this
question of a man who represented
all knowledge and power to you. He

said: 'My dear, the natural and the
human are of quite different orders.
You will understand this later when
you are old enough to study physi-
ology.' There was no food in this
stone for your hungry little heart,
and you fled again to the fields and
in tears flung yourself at the feet of
the nodding flowers. How they
leaned together and bent over you
with soothing and tender caresses!
And then God came in just a sim-
ple thought: 'Perhaps the flowers
are speaking to you. Listen, and
tell me just what you hear.' And
the answer came to your own heart:
'Be very patient, as we are. We
grow in one little plot of earth where
we are sown, but we draw from it all
this beautiful color which gives such
joy to you. The great winds come
to bring us perfume, and in one per-
fect leaf we give it back to you. We
have no fear of cold or tempest, day
or night, for love brought us forth,
and to its end we live.' It was in
that hour God gave you the key
to interpretation, with but one loving
command: 'Be true, be simple, but
above all, be true.' From that hour
you were never alone again, for God
walked upon the earth. Your first
doubt of this came during the long
winter. One midnight, when the
earth was a white fury of wind and
snow, you left your bed and listened
in the darkness. How you longed to
know if God were awake in this ter-
rible tempest. And then, suddenly,
the bleat of a restless sheep carried
a protest through the night, and you
could sleep no more in your forlorn
wonder about the world. But when
the river ran free once more you had
no "uncertainty. The gates were lifted

316

AN INTERLUDE

up ; the everlasting doors were thrown
wide open, and the King of glory had
come in. God walked daily upon the
hills, and in his footsteps sprang all
the grass, and his hand opened the
buds for you. You breathed in the
beauty of every day as simply as the
green things did ; and beauty was im-
mortal for you and for them.

"But one evening in the heart of
the still wood, a yellow leaf fell softly
on your hand. You looked up in
wonder only to find another, and yet
another, just waiting for the first light
wind to scatter them on the moss.
And the moss, too, had changed;
little discolored threads of yellow and
brown were weaving it into an
antique tapestry. And now with
peculiar eagerness you followed the
old wood-road to the open. A red
squirrel in the hazel brush watched
you with derisive scrutiny ; but you
had no time to spare for him then.
Out in the old wood lot the brilliant
flame of the fireweed had faded to a
dull purple; many of the weeds had
shrunken to an ashy gauze that
drifted away like mist. On the top of
the hill the scarlet berries of the
round-wood tree, grouped against
their yellow leaves, struck a sudden
glory in the dusk. And here, where
you gathered strawberries in June,
only the crimson links of the vines
climbed up the old gray rock and
sank into the grass again. In the
orchard the air was as sweet as
though many Mays had been distilled
into this one night. Nothing broke
the quiet here but the fall of an apple,
and that, too, was muffled in the long
grass. The light had gone out of the
sky, and so far away was the depth
of heaven that even the stars seemed

sad and desolate. And again the
wonder of the world overwhelmed
you. The wash of the river against
the shore broke upon your heart.
You felt that you must break these
boundaries of your dreams ; that you
must climb the hills, and sail beyond
the bend in the river."

"But may I not seek for knowl-
edge?" I cried. "Yes," she whis-
pered, " for is not the divine knowl-
edge the very heart and fabric of
nature? Seek knowledge joyfully, for
it is the oil in the lamp, but the spirit
is the flame ; and the pure spirit is
that which God first sets in the heart
of the little child. Keep it as your
divine possession and you may seek
all knowledge without fear. But
listen yet a moment. One night on
those hills of home a young lamb
lost its way. All day it had cropped
in the sun moving from green to
fresher green. At night the wise
sheep trotted to the fold, but the
lamb could not find its way home. It
finally stopped crying and lay down
on the moss where the buttercups
twinkled like stars. The dusk and
the dew fell upon it as gently
as in the fold, and every grow-
ing thing sent out its sweet breath
to the night. There, on a knoll,
it slept, until a silver line of
light parted the clouds and flowed
from the inner heaven where hung
a single star. And the lamb waked
in this wide and tender light to
find the hill wrapped in glory and
it alone in the radiance. But fear
durst not touch it in this silver
mystery. By and by came a second
dusk and a tremor as of some impal-
pable presence crept close to it; but
still no fear touched the lamb ; it had

A STORY OF THE SEA

317

passed its youth in this night on the
hill. And then a new light, soft as
the inner down of a dove's wing,
broke the line between the sky and the
mountain where the highest fir-tree
stood as a plumed knight. Swiftly
the . line spread till a whole army
seemed to have risen from camp.
The tall knight raised a crimson
spear whose radiance touched the
whole mountain into flame, and
every bird came singing to. the light.
The wise sheep were still sleeping
in the shadow of the fold, but
the lamb had seen the morning star,

and the sunrise on the mountain
top."

All silently, as Nature talked, the
hours melted into each other, and now
the day was growing dim. Across the
field she moved once more, across
the clover now a fragrant mist upon
the grass, and into the shadow of the
wood she passed, where every leal
was as the voice of a child calling her
home. I was alone again by the old
beech-tree, but I knew she would
come to me wherever a hill lifts its
head against the sky, or a river sings
along its shores.

A Story of the Sea

By L. M. Sawyer

TELL you about myself,
dearie? there isn't much
to tell. I was born only
twenty miles from here, in
that quiet nook beyond the head-
land, and my longest journey was
when I came here as a bride. How
brightly the sun shone that day I
remember still, and how the fields
were filled with goldenrod, and how
proud I was as I rode along in the old
stagecoach, holding my husband's
hand, and thinking there was no one
else in all the world so happy.

But you want me to tell you all,
and begin at the time I lived
around the headland? Well, dear,
when I was a child that cliff seemed
a mountain high to me, shutting out
all the world beyond, and making the
village in the little cove where I lived

seem like a' prison. But that was
when I was older. Before that I
thought the world could hold no
fairer spot than our long smooth
beach, and the deep woods where I
spent so many happy hours.

Our house was poor and old, like
all the other fishermen's homes, but
I was the youngest and my father's
pet, so the work of helping with the
fish did not fall to me, and I was al-
lowed to attend school both terms of
the year. My brothers and sisters
could go but one term a year, and not
always that if they were needed at
home, but I loved books and learned
quickly and perhaps that's why I talk
differently from the other people here.

Oh, that happy, happy childhood!
What though my gown was old and
torn, and stained with the juice of the

318

A STORY OF THE SEA

wild blackberry, and my feet were
bare six months of the year. What
cared I? All day long through the
happy summer I raced the beach ;
numberless castles grew under my
hands, and if the waves washed them
away, what mattered? The whole
beach was mine. Did any other
sands ever hold such wondrous shells,
or have such beautiful starfish?
Where were the waves that could roll
and roll so gently, breaking so softly
on the beach, bringing in the fishing
boats? And then what joy. How we
children danced around as the bright,
shining fish were taken out of the
nets, and how proudly we trailed after
our fathers and big brothers up to our
homes !

And then in the fall what woods
ever held such wealth of nuts, and
red and yellow leaves? And how
sweetly the air blew in the pine
grove. Then came winter, and the
happy days at school, until the spring
came again, and the woods grew
beautiful with a soft, faint green, and
even the headland looked pretty with
the short, bright grass.

Was I always so happy, you ask.
Ah, no. I romped and raced, free
as the air, until I was ten years old,
and then came the most eventful day
I had ever known.

All my life I had longed to climb
the headland and see the wonderful
world beyond, but the rocks were
hard to climb, and there was no path.
But for my birthday treat, my brother
Bill, who was eighteen, had promised
to take me to the top of the cliff.
How early I rose that morning, and
with what glee I started off, my hand
in his, and jumping with joy! No
matter if I stumbled and slid, my

brother held me up, and on we went.
I kept my eyes down and would not
look in any direction in order not to
lessen one bit of the final pleasure.
And so we reached the top, and I
held my breath, and the wind blew
so strong I held to Bill with both
hands, and looked and looked, away
out to sea. Not the sea as I had
always seen it from our cove, bound
in by the headlands, but broad and
wide, with the sails passing and pass-
ing, and the bar beyond the headland,
where the ships passed safely at high
tide, but went way round when the
tide ebbed. And when I had looked
and looked, I turned to the shore,
and saw the quaint town with its
streets built on the side of the bluff,
and the rough, stony footpaths, and
the houses clinging to the side of the
hill as if afraid the wind would blow
them out to sea. What a lovely lunch
we had, eaten in the shelter of a
rock, and how quickly the hours flew
that bright September day ! I ran all
over the top of the bluff, gathering the
tiny blue flowers that grew there, and
shouting with joy. But at last we had
to start for home. My father had
been away on a trip, but we expected
him back that night, and I sat up
long after my bedtime, hoping he
would come, and eager to tell him of
my great adventure.

I was sitting by the window, trying
hard to keep my eyes from closing
and my head from nodding, when old
Ned Conly, one of father's mates,
knocked at the door. Bill opened it,
and they stood whispering in the
entry, when my mother went out to
them, and then I heard a scream that
made me jump with terror. It was
only the old story, so common in

A STORY OF THE SEA

319

fishermen's homes, of the heavy sea,
and the sudden wave that washes
over the ship, and when it goes back,
takes a life with it.

Do I mind talking about it? No,
dear, no. I loved my father, and
* cried with the others, but a child's
heart ache is quickly healed, and it
was more for the change it brought
to me that I missed him so much,
though for nights and nights I cried
myself to sleep, thinking of how I
could never tell him of my day on the
cliff.

When the father of a family died
in those days it meant that the oldest
son must take his place, and so on,
each one doing the work the one
older had done, and so a new life came
to me. I went to school that winter,
but the next summer, when the fish-
ing boats came in, I had to take my
basket of fish, and walking through
the woods nearly three miles inland,
go from door to door offering my fish.
It was not so bad, though, for a party
of us always went together, and we
would start for home in the cool of
the afternoon, and walk slowly over
the deep green moss that made a soft
carpet in the forest.

So the years passed, and I grew to
be a tall girl, learning all our simple
household work, and to sew and spin,
and, most important of all, to mend
the nets. During those years my
sisters and brothers married and went
to homes of their own, and at last my
mother died, and then Jack came.
He lived in this village all his life, but
my brother Bill and he had met in
the great ocean world, and were fast
friends. So we sold our little cot-
tage beyond the cliff, and Jack had
this house built for me, and together

with their savings, Bill and he bought
a schooner and launched it the day
after I was married. Of course,
they named it after me, the Mary
Josephine, and I was a proud woman
when the ship went out on her first
trip. Too proud, my new neighbors
said, because my house was larger
and finer than theirs, but I did not care
then what they thought. I was so
happy when my husband and brother
came home, and so busy sewing for
the little one that was coming. Well,
dearie, our baby came and died, and
I was a long while getting my
strength again. Jack and Bill took
turns staying with me that summer
while the other one went on the trip,
but with the cooler days my strength
came back, and toward the end of
October I Was able to do my work
again. I went down to the shore
that bright October day, and waved
my hand as long as the boat was in
sight. When I entered my home
again it seemed so lonesome after
having had some one there so many
weeks, but I did not know then I
should always be alone.

Don't try to tell you any more,
dear? Oh, it does me good to talk
and my tears come seldom now !

Well, I tried not to give in to my
lonesomeness, and busied myself
in putting the house to rights, and in
thinking of the pleasant Christmas
season coming, and what great sur-
prise I would plan for them. But the
weeks went slowly, and we had cold,
windy weather, and the other fisher-
men's wives shook their heads and
wished their men were back.

I was sitting at my window one
evening as I had done one September
night a little over twelve years be-

320

A STORY OF THE SEA

fore, when a man came up the street,
and stopping in front of the house,
looked at me. I knew who he was,
one of the sailors who had gone in
the Mary Josephine, and I knew the
truth before he knocked at the door.
I did not hear half his story then, for
a merciful unconsciousness came over
me, and it was long afterwards, and
the Christmas season for which I had
planned was long past, before I was
able to hear all the truth. It was
only the old story, of the terrible
storm that raged all night and day
and all the next night. In the middle
of the second night, my brother tried
to climb the slippery mast, but lost
his hold, and fell overboard. It
was madness to try to save him
in such a sea, but Jack was after
him in a minute. That was the
last.

Well, dearie, I lived because we
have to live, and death never comes
when we. want it. As I grew better,
the neighbors grew more friendly,
and I began to see that perhaps I had
been too proud after all. Grief is a
great leveller, my dear. The next fall
I started to teach the little school,
more to take up my mind than
because I needed the money, for the
ship belonged to me. I taught,
though, for nearly thirty years, and
my little pupils grew up and married,
and their little ones came to me. I
know now the children saved my
mind and made life worth living once
more. They brought their childish
griefs to me, and I knew from my own
childhood their troubles were real.
After a while their mothers got into
the habit of coming to my little house
after school, and I heard their
troubles, too. The sea was just as

cruel as in the old days when I was
young, and the boats still came back
without a father, or husband, or
brother, or perhaps came not back at
all. Since the sea had taken all I
had I knew just how it was with
them, and that is why they liked to
talk with me.

What is that you say, the people
call me Grandma Comfort? Ah, dear,
that is only because they are so kind
and loving. They have warm, tender '
hearts though their ways are rough.
I have never been able to do much for
them, only listen to their stories, and
let them feel they have a friend; and
always, dear, I have tried so hard to
be charitable to all, even to the boy
who was taking to drink, and to the
girl who was wild. We all have the
same nature, I think, only one grows
thin at one place and another wears
out somewhere else, and we all need
a 'tender hand to put on the patches,
lest the needle sting.

So I have grown old, dear, and the
mothers and children still come to
me with their troubles, but after they
have gone and the twilight comes I
love to sit at the window and watch
the ships go by, although my ship
never comes in. And I love to think
of what life is, a little pleasure and a
great deal of pain, but a great deal of
love ; a big world of sin and sorrow,
and hunger and cold, but I thank God
I have learned through pain and
sorrow to pity the children's troubles
and the mothers' griefs, and above all,
to have charity. And so I sit and
watch the ships go by, for I know
that some evening soon, as the moon
shines behind the headland, my ship
will come again to take me beyond
the bar.

Lowell's Influence in England

By Herbert W. Horwill

HE various books and
articles that have been
concerned with the life
of James Russell Lowell
have paid special attention to the
period of his residence in London
as American minister to the Court
of St. James. They have discussed
with much animation the ques-
tion whether this appointment im-
paired his Americanism. On this
subject the last word appears to have
been said by Scudder's recent biogra-
phy.

There is, however, another side of
Lowell's relation to England which
has not yet been commented upon to
the point of exhaustion. While there
is now a pretty general agreement as
to the nature and extent of the influ-
ence of England upon Lowell, there
may yet be something to be said
respecting Lowell's influence upon
England. The study of a consider-
able number of American criticisms
has left upon me the impression that
the true nature of that influence is
commonly misinterpreted on this side
of the Atlantic. An exaggerated
value is set upon one phase of it, to
the ignoring or minimizing of a ser-
vice which was really greater and
more enduring.

It seems to be generally believed
in America that Lowell, in his capa-
city as representative of the United
States, became a prominent figure in

English public life. It is, indeed, sug-
gested that this happens in the case
of every American minister to Lon-
don. An English minister, we are
told, is a representative to the
American government, but an Ameri-
can minister is a representative to the
English people. It is doubtless true
that Mr. Choate more frequently at-
tends extra-diplomatic functions in
London than Lord Pauncefote did in
Washington or New York. But the
merchants and clubmen of the
metropolis are not the English
people. The fact is that not one
Englishman in a hundred could give
the name of the present occupant of
the American Embassy, and not one
in a thousand could give a list of the
American ministers during the last
ten years. The average American
citizen would find it a hard matter to
write down the names of the repre-
sentatives of the European Powers to
the American Republic, and the aver-
age Englishman is not at all better
informed as to the identity of the for-
eign diplomatists appointed to Lon-
don. When Lowell came to England
he was better known there by repute
than any of his predecessors or suc-
cessors, at least for a generation.
Consequently his appointment at-
tracted more attention than any of
theirs, and he is to-day the best
known and best remembered of all
who have occupied the post within

321

322

LOWELL'S INFLUENCE IN ENGLAND

the memory of middle-aged men. But
it is quite a mistake to suppose that
during his term of office he came
personally in close touch with the
English people. His distinction as a
writer made him an honored guest
and prominent speaker at several im-
portant literary celebrations, and his
addresses on such occasions were ex-
tensively reported. But with all this
the charm of his personality had so
narrow a sphere within which to
operate that it could not possibly
exert such a deep and wide influence
as is generally attributed to it here.

It is nevertheless true that Lowell's
influence on England has been wider
and deeper than that of any other
American of his time. It has mainly
affected a section of English society
with which, during his London resi-
dence, he came scarcely into contact
at all. It may be that in London clubs
and salons the mention of his name
suggests principally the rare social
gifts of which his personal friends
speak with such enthusiasm ; but to
a multitude of men and women, in-
cluding many who are themselves
according to their opportunity leaders
of the people, he is pre-eminently a
champion of Christian democracy.
The dreadful confesision may as well
be made first as last, painful though
it may be to some of his admirers,
Lowell is par excellence the poet of
"the Nonconformist conscience." He
has stimulated to a degree of which
even New Englanders have no con-
ception the movement in Old Eng-
land for righteousness in public life.
The sturdiest members of the free
churches particularly, who inherit the
tradition of many struggles for right
and freedom, respond ardently to the

appeal of those inspired and inspiring
poems in which he drives home the
duty of honest men at a crisis. The
class of which I speak has not lost its
Puritanism in its zeal for progress.
There is another type of English re-
former which gets more help from
Walt Whitman, but Whitman is no
Puritan, and he therefore fails to
touch that more powerful class which
is not afraid to be thought narrow in
its insistence upon the restraints that
are a condition of worthy liberty.
This class is just now under a cloud.
At present it can scarcely do more
than give its testimony, but by and
by that testimony will win verdicts
as it has done many times in the past.
It is not, then, as diplomatist or
after-dinner speaker, or even as critic
or poet, that Lowell has made the
deepest impression upon England.
His true place is among the prophets.
Scudder says of him, "A preacher at
bottom he was throughout his
career," and this estimate would be
confirmed by those Englishmen to
whom he means most. A striking
illustration of this was recently pro-
vided by the Expository Times, a
magazine which is edited by a Presby-
terian minister and is fairly repre-
sentative of the spirit of the Non-
conformist ministry throughout the
United Kingdom. In an article in the.
May number the editor says: "James
Russell Lowell was a prophet. He
seemed to be a politician. He was
also known as a poet. He had more
title to the name of critic. He might
be called all three — poet, critic, poli-
tician ; but he was really only a
prophet." The writer goes on to say
that Lowell took up poetry only as a
vehicle for his prophecies ; that he

LOWELL'S INFLUENCE IN ENGLAND

323

was a critic because he knew that the
most difficult office the prophet has
to fulfil is that of judge; and that he
was a politician because the prophet
must always speak to the men of his
own time. "How could a man be a
prophet who did not take a side be-
tween North and South in the Civil
War? . . . Lowell linked him-
self to St. Paul and said, 'God made
man in His own image.' And when
the day came for the practical vindi-
cation of that principle, Lowell was
where St. Paul would have been."

And Lowell was not only a
preacher, but a preacher to preachers.
The younger ministry in the free
churches is better acquainted with
Lowell's poetry than with that of any
other writer. Traces of that influence
might be found alike in published
sermons and in discourses heard
from the pulpit. As a rough test
of influence quotations are very
good evidence, and there are many
people in the pews, themselves not
readers of poetry, who have been
made familiar with certain passages
from "Extreme Unction," "A Par-
able" (both the poems with this title)
"The Vision of Sir Launfal," "Bibli-
olaters," "The Forlorn" and "A
Legend of Brittany." Further, within
the last few years whatever agitations
have had a righteous passion at the
centre of them have) drawn largely
from the inspiration of Lowell. Any
one who attended the pro-Armenian
and pro-Cretan meetings could soon
get by heart, without seeing a book,
several stanzas from the lines on "The
Present Crisis" and "On the Capture
of Fugitive Slaves near Washing-
ton." These extracts did not serve
merely as tags to fill out a peroration.

There was a spirit in these verses
which had first quickened the speak-
ers and nerved them to their own pro-
test. They naturally caught upon
these lines both to express their own
feeling and to arouse the same temper
in their hearers. And the most un-
popular agitation of all, that against
the Transvaal War, found in this
American minority poet its best ex-
ponent. Once more "The Present
Crisis" pointed the solemnity of the
nation's choice of policy, while "Anti-
Apis" recalled the inevitable result
of a conflict between imperialism and
justice. But it was the homely wis-
dom of the "Biglow Papers" that
most aptly hit off the situation from
the point of view of those who were
labelled pro-Boers. When, at the
outbreak of the war, men of light and
leading argued that confidence ought
to be placed in the government,
which doubtless had sufficient reasons
for its attitude, what fitter reply
could there be than this?

"Ef you take a sword an' dror it,
An' go stick a feller thru,
Guv'ment ain't to answer for it,
God'll send the bill to you."

And surely nothing written ex-
pressly for the purpose could repre-
sent more exactly than the following-
lines the position of those who, a
little later, professed the conviction
that the war was a crime, but at the
same time supported the policy of
fighting to a finish:

"Ez fer the war, I go agin it, —
I mean to> say I kind o' du, —
Thet is, I mean thet, bein' in it,
The best way wuz to fight it thru."

In any account of Lowell's influ-
ence in England it would be un-

324

LOWELL'S INFLUENCE IN ENGLAND

pardonable to omit mention of those
to whom the wide circulation of his
writings is mainly due. The credit of
his introduction to Eng-lish readers
must be given principally to the late
Thomas Hughes, whose appreciative
preface still stands at the beginning
of the Macmillan edition. Lately the
most aggressive Lowell enthusiast
has undoubtedly been W. T. Stead,
who gave a selection from Lowell the
fourth place in the long series of his
"Penny Poets for School and Home."
This cheap reprint has had a very
large sale, and has made the most
democratic and humanitarian of the
poems familiar to working men of
the more earnest and thoughtful type.
Mr. Stead's own teaching is simply
saturated with Lowell. For example,
"If Christ came to Chicago" prints
on its title-page a motto taken from.
"Said Christ the Lord, T will go and
see/ ''" the whole of the poem is
quoted in the preface, and' we are
told that it suggested the idea of the
book and inspired every page in it.
In one of those remarkable confes-
sions of his, Mr. Stead declares that
in some of the critical moments of his
life he found in Lowell help such as
he found in none other outside Car-
lyle's "Cromwell" and Holy Writ. His
first impulse to journalism came from
reading the preface to "The Pious
Editor's Creed." Later, while still a
youth, he received a copy of Lowell's
poems as part of a prize awarded in a
magazine competition. With the ex-
ception of a Thomas a Kempis, the gift
of General Gordon before starting for
Khartoum, it is the most precious of
all his books. It reached him at a
critical time, when he was in a de-
pressed mood and haunted by the

fear of going blind. There now came
to him, from "Extreme Unction," an
influence that changed his life. No
four lines ever printed went into him
so deeply as these:

'"'Now here I gasp; what lose my kind,
When this fast-ebbing breath shall
part?
What bands of love and service bind
This being to the world's sad heart?"

At each later crisis Lowell's teach-
ing helped to stiffen his backbone.
Lowell supplied for him the Psalms
of the crusade of 1876-78, and for
nearly four years, during the protest
against England's alliance with the
unspeakable Turk, Mr. Stead's lead-
ing articles, at the rate of six a week,
had as their constant refrain the sub-
stance of the stanzas beginning,
"When a deed is done for freedom."
In this way the most powerful
prophet-journalist of our time has
again and again felt his spiritual kin-
ship with our greatest prophet-poet.
If L>owell had exercised no* direct in-
fluence upon any Englishman but Mr.
Stead, his indirect influence upon the
national life through this medium
would still have deserved grateful
record.

It would perhaps be a rash gener-
alization, but I am tempted to ex-
press the opinion that to-day the
impression of Lowell's poems is
more keenly felt in England than
in America. Possibly they form part
of the usual school curriculum here
and are therefore taken for granted
afterward! It would be interesting to
know, however, whether the general
silence about them springs from
ignorance of them or from over-
familiarity. One would like, if it

THE CHILD'S TASTE IN FICTION

325

were possible, to take such a gather-
ing of young men and women as
meets once a year in the City Temple
in connection with the Congrega-
tional Young People's Union and
test its knowledge of Lowell as com-
pared with that of a similar assembly
in New York. I would venture the
forecast that a larger proportion of
the English congregation than of the
American would recognize the name
of John P. Robinson.
Not even the oddities of the Yankee

dialect, combined with the specialty
of a temporary and local situation,
can conceal the truth to nature of a
masterpiece of character-drawing.
The candidates, editors and voters at
whom Lowell's shafts were aimed are
not the peculiarity of one country or
of one time. Therefore, wherever in
any English-speaking land there are
to be found politicians who front
south by north, the satire of the
"Biglow Papers" will not lose its
pungency.

The Child's Taste in Fiction

By Florence Hull Winterburn

FEW grown people know what
literature they like until they
have been told by somebody
whose opinion they respect
what they ought to like. Their ad-
miration or disapproval results from
a deliberate deference to rules and
standards, or, in the case of the un-
educated, from that emotional stam-
pede that draws an entire mass on-
ward after a leader.

But children, being comparatively
isolated from the influence of contem-
porary opinion, receive from their
first acquaintance with a book the
effect of the book itself, free from
the prejudice of an introduction.
The ideas they may form in regard
to it have the sincerity of a convic-
tion reached by independent reason-
ing; more acceptable, consequently,
as an indication of individual taste,
than the impressions of adults who

rarely approach a book with unbiased
mind.

And not only will an unsophisti-
cated child pass judgment upon an
author in accordance with his own
sentiments towards him, but he will
state his impression in a straightfor-
ward manner. He has neither apolo-
gies nor explanations to make for
finding a famous writer dull nor an-
other agreeable. It is instructive to
hear the candid criticisms of a young,
unspoiled mind, but an understanding
which is wholly natural in its pro-
cesses is not by any means character-
istic of all children. Although there
is in the life of every child a period
when he is intellectually honest, it is
often brief ; cut short by his introduc-
tion to school. Here the sharp edge
of originality quickly grinds away
against the machine constructed to
turn individualities into averages.

326

THE CHILD'S TASTE IN FICTION

So quick and sure is the change
under school discipline from impul-
sive frankness to calculated effects
that I believe the data recently con-
tributed by school libraries concern-
ing children's literary tastes can
scarcely be considered good evidence
of their natural inclinations. It is
the product of a cultivated soil, not a
spontaneous outgrowth. And the de-
termination to accept these as proofs
of a child's mental bias reveals that
prejudice in favor of the grafting of
adult opinions upon the tender shoots
of young instinct which is constantly
leading us away from a true under-
standing of child nature. We cannot
ascertain what a child thinks by start-
ing out in our inquiry with a fixed
idea of what he ought to think. Lit-
tle is gained, indeed, by attention to
his purely mental processes, even
when they are honestly studied. We
must chiefly consider his emotional
expressions. The development of a
faculty ordinarily proceeds under so
much direction that it is almost the
last thing upon which we can found a
judgment of character. What we
sometimes mistake for character is
merely an inclination to exercise our
powers along the lines education has
suggested. As fast as emotions be-
come intellectualized they take the
tone of the people who exert in-
fluence over us, and it is only in those
rare cases where a child receives such
a training as directs his natural tal-
ents into the character most favorable
for the preservation of his individual
life, that he retains beyond infancy the
power of frank expression. What is
called culture is often a mere heaping
up of a mass of superficial activities.
Self-educated persons, who gather up

from the world's intellectual wealth
only that toward which their minds
throw out tendrils, attain surpassing
force and independence. And if, as
some believe, the best education is
the preserving and enriching of indi-
vidual power, evejry encouragement
should be given youth to respect its
own insight in intellectual things, and
while carefully cultivating taste, guard
its native sensibility.

Patient inquiry would discover in
every normal child an instinctive ap-
preciation of the good and the beau-
tiful, at least equal to the guiding
light of our own adult experience.
There is, in fact, a curious likeness
between the pure impulse of a simple
understanding and the aspiration of
a mind broadly cultured. A little
child's estimate of literature which
is at all within the realm of his com-
prehension is usually more than re-
spectable ; it is often acute, searching,
just. What he likes is apt to have
some claim to excellence, even if of a
simple kind. And his distaste of
complications closely resembles the
rejection of clumsy effects made by
a truly aesthetic nature when what
is wanted is something to touch the
heart.

Whoever will take the trouble to
win the confidence of a' child just be-
ginning to get an acquaintance with
literature, chiefly as yet through
having stories read aloud, will proba-
bly find some very positive inclina-
tions already aroused. Out of a
dozen books one will be eagerly
praised, the others listened to with
indifference or impatience. And al-
though this indication of preference
or aversion may seem like a caprice,
study of the child's tastes in other

THE CHILD'S TASTE IN FICTION

327

matters will reveal such similarity of
likes and dislikes as to show a valid
reason for the criticism. Cold, som-
bre or subtle things attract him not.
It is his metier to respond, not to in-
terpret, and art may ask much from
his feelings, but no new effort from
his mind. The dividing line betwixt
pain and pleasure is much sharper in
youth than in maturity, and clearer,
truer. Work is called work, play is
known as play. A book that exacts
hard thinking cannot delude infantile
fancy by indulging in an occasional
pleasantry. Emotion is king in the
realm of childhood's tastes. The de-
mand a child makes of a story is that
it shall have vitality, the warmth that
can kindle interest. Humor, pathos,
or a lively bit of description stir him
more than older readers, because his
susceptibility has not been dulled by
abuse. Whatever is presented in clear
relief appeals successfully to young,
fresh fancy. But an author must keep
firm hold of his subject and indulge
no soaring propensities.

Do we undertake to transport a
child from the family sitting-room to
the country on a May day, we must
make the grass grow under his feet,
show him the apple blossoms so that
he gets the effect of their pinkness,
and put such life into the lambs that
his own limbs frisk in sympathy.
And all this must be made vivid by a
few words. Would the most critical
taste ask more than is here demanded
by innate feeling for the beautiful?
Lengthy descriptions make him as
impatient as they do Bourget, and he
asks for such an artistic reproduction
of a scene as may nail his attention
fast. If too much is said he ceases
to attend, and with better sense

than we usually dare to exhibit in the
same case, leaves the story for an-
other more graphically set forth.

Flaubert made young Maupassant
write a description over and over
again, until he could exclaim, "Now
I see it!" And if any writer had the
humility and shrewdness to go to
school to an intelligent six-year-old
child, he might get the same kind of
discipline. Spencer's masterly essay
on "The Philosophy of Style" hits the
child's notions precisely. There must
be no strain upon the reader's under-
standing, but everything be presented
in such a manner that it may be com-
prehended without much effort. Few
words, but those few filled with mean-
ing; a cunningly conceived plan that
shows worth from the start and does
not tire as it unfolds. Let the matter
be what you will, only related to
something already experienced, so
that as the child reads he may have
the gratification of exclaiming from
time to time, "Yes, that is so; I know
that already." This remark is high
approval.

There are children who take a kind
of pleasure, I am told, in tickling
their ears with the sound of rhyth-
mical phrases ; a baby of two years
who listened in delight to Tennyson's
"Sweet and Low," and other preco-
cious poets who sigh over "Thana-
topsis" ; but we must regard such
manifestations of preference for the
incomprehensible as marks of an ex-
ceptionally gifted intellect. Most in-
telligent young people under a dozen
years, when childish tastes begin to
change, have a hunger for what is
vivid and present; choosing, if one
may so phrase it, the legs of plain
prose, not the wings of verse ; liking

328

THE CHILD'S TASTE IN FICTION

rhyme very well, but insisting- upon
the story.

Folk lore makes no mistake and
is permanently satisfying. "Mother
Goose" holds her place in our nur-
sery because in such thrilling narra-
tive as "Little Jack Horner" and
"Mary and the Lamb" there is an im-
mediate answer to the child's wish for
reality. A living person with an iden-
tifying name is at once projected on
his attention. He is introduced as a
playmate. Then he is given some-
thing to do that is both curious and
interesting; something one would not
mind doingone's self if chance offered.
The laugh comes with the discomfit-
ure of somebody or something not
especially cared for. Favorites must
be protected and extricated from all
troubles before the tale ends, if there
is to be peace.

Here becomes apparent the in-
fluence of different temperaments. A
touch of native malice makes a child
find entertainment in descriptions of
mishaps, while many more sensitive
minds must have things hastened
along to a good ending. There are
rare instances where a child's sym-
pathies are so acute that tame and
commonplace tales are preferred to
exciting ones. One little friend of
mine protests against "adventures."
She understands that other people
want them in stories, but for her own
part finds them harrowing. Seized
by a fever of authorship she began
dictating a tale to her father, which
ran along so smoothly that even her
own sense became penetrated with its
dulness, and with a despairing clutch
upon her curls, she exclaimed, "How
shall I get an adventure in this?"
The best she could finally do was to

have her heroine fall out of a very low
apple tree.

This is certainly an over-refinement
of sensibility. Most children can
stand having their favorites buffeted
for the sake of a rescue. Boys want
the excitement strong, but girls pre-
fer something more delicate and sus-
tained. They would have a heroine
continually doing agreeable little
things, like Miss Alcott's "Jo," who
is, I believe, the most popular charac-
ter in any book written for children.
She is so altogether human; spicy,
yet high-minded, and, above all, im-
pulsive, like themselves. If we would
get at the secret of what gives charm
to character, I think it is this, the
showing of lively impulse. A real
child is always swayed by caprices,
stopping scarcely one time out of a
hundred to calculate and 'study con-
sequences, and if he avoids all dan-
gers it is after personal experience
has taught him what they mean.
When an author presents a cool, far-
sighted young creature who pauses
before every attractive caper to de-
cide whether he will get his feet wet
or lose his chance of going to heaven,
one cannot blame a sensible little
reader for throwing down the book.

There are bits in some good novels
that children recognize as faithful
painting and like better than any tale
written down to their understanding.
Give them the school day experience
of Jane Eyre, the chapter from "The
Claxtons" about Pisistratus and his
flower pot, or that picturesque and
too little known genre bit from Mrs.
Stowe's "Pogamec People," where
Dolly goes to the illumination, if you
would learn# whether children appre-
ciate excellence. Dickens's stories

THE CHILD'S TASTE IN FICTION

329

about Poor Jo, Harry Walmers, Jr.
and Little Em'ly are popular. The
slender volume lately brought out by
Dickens's daughter deserves praise,
yet there is material for more such
in the master's works. Every well-
read woman may, however, make ap-
propriate selections from the best
authors to suit the tastes of her little
hearers. It is one of a mother's privi-
leges to introduce her children in this
manner to what is best in literature
and not send them forth utterly facile
and undeveloped, to have their own
opinions formed by any teacher into
whose charge they may happen to
come. Let their right instincts have
a chance.

Old books, especially those meant
for adults, contain treasures not to
be found on modern juvenile book-
shelves. Indeed, the majority of
books written for children are an af-
front to their taste. They are mostly
fantastic, exaggerated and lacking in
true perception of child nature.
They deal with life from the point of
view of the adult trying to seem
young. A kind of mocking humor
results, which appeals, to experience,
but not to innocence. An unsophis-
ticated child is puzzled and revolted
by magicians and goblins who talk
satirically, by animals who are philo-
sophical, and young persons who are
made to pose for the purpose of act-
ing out an author's idea. To succeed
with them a writer must be sincere
and have no double object in view.
And this is why those child charac-
ters wrought by the masters to intro-
duce their more elaborate personages
strike the chord of young sympathy.
They are written in the author's best
mood and most earnest vein. When

a novelist presents his heroi as an
infant he knows that he works to win
or lose all. If he does not succeed
in making him interesting, it is all
over. We may waste one perusal on
his book, but will not return to it.
If readers universally abided by their
better impulses there would be a
great weeding out in our literary
fields.

The child does cull sensibly if he is
allowed. He chooses the story that
strikes the truest note; that appeals
both to his knowledge and his im-
agination. And another fine point
showing how closely his instinct is in
agreement with the keenest critics is
his preference for a certain skilful re-
serve in the drawing of a character.
He likes to have his fancy stimulated,
not satiated. Perhaps this desire is
more characteristic of girls, although
not wanting in boys. Wherever there
is originality in young readers there
is present a desire to seize upon any
idea offered and carry it farther
along. Some children take pleasure
in mentally experimenting with any
hero or heroine they adopt as a friend.
They invent new situations, develop
traits an author has barely hinted, and
solve problems simply suggested.
Firm outlines, natural tones, are the
essentials, and with these the child
improves.

There is no raconteur more success-
ful with children than a child with a
talent for story telling. If books for
children could be written by children,
we should then have a real juvenile
literature. It would be interesting to
set a phonograph at work in the room
with a young story teller and study
the result. Or, if one could accurate-
ly recall the tales reeled off in one's

330

THE CHILD'S TASTE IN FICTION

own early days to groups of little
friends, the gist of something to labor
upon might be obtained.

It is certain that there ought to be
present in every juvenile tale an at-
mosphere of sympathy with childhood,
and this is difficult to create unless
the author is young, at least in his
feeling. The suggestion of effects
sought in the author's own view of
life, instead of resulting naturally
from the action of the story, is repug-
nant. And this may be the reason
why Grimm's fairy tales, simple and
matter-of-fact, even in their exorbi-
tant use of wealth and power, are pre-
ferred to Hans Andersen's, fantas-
tically beautiful as they are. There
is too often manifest in them a deli-
cate irony, a sadness of outlook that
betrays the poet and sage.

They are for pensive hours, not for
the happier periods of life, and al-
though children will occasionally
yield to the influence of the meta-
physical spirit, if it is artful, they in-
cline toward what is bright and hope-
ful. Stories may not end in gloom
nor death, nor in that satirical wind-
ing up sometimes given as the final
experience of a hero who has been
breathlessly watched through many
adventures, "He awoke and found it
all a dream!" This makes the child
feel that his credulity has been played
upon. A confession of unreality is
an anti-climax. Who wants to see
the wheels the scene moves on? It
is like being compelled to watch the
prompter's box at the opera. The
most pleasing writer is the one who

skilfully preserves an illusion, and
who carries a reader onward as if
borne on wings ; while in the air the
earth is only nicely apparent. A
grown person can seldom enjoy this
purely psychical experience as keenly
as an imaginative child. With what
abandon does he enter into it! How
enthusiastically he pursues the flow-
ery path of "suppose," which may
lead, as George Eliot warns, to a
mathematical dreamland, but is
youth's own natural road to a quite
innocent kind of sensuous enjoy-
ment.

The desire to continue such illu-
sions, to dwell among them for many
sequent hours, leads a child to love
long stories and enjoy the multiplica-
tion of adventures of a favorite hero.
If he could be made sufficiently at-
tractive there is a possibility that one
hero would last a child during the
term of nursery existence. Such a
character as the worthy "Tuflongbo,"
in Holm Lee's fairy tales, is much
cherished.

Yet, although the instinct of child-
hood is so true, so constant, it is little
understood by writers and mostly
ignored by educators. Year after
year books are produced which con-
tain nothing to appeal to a child's
pure taste for the beautiful, the living,
the everlastingly human in art. If
the most difficult role in all the lit-
erary field is to write a successful
book for children, it is because chil-
dren are not to be dazzled by tinsel in
anything which affects their feelings.
They want gold.

The Tale of Brooks Tavern

By Frederick Brooks Noyes

HISTORY, like everything
else, travels very slowly
over the old road from
Acton Common, which
branches at Rocky Guzzle into
the turnpikes to Sudbury and Con-
cord and the avenue to the ancient
town burial ground. The tale of this
lonesome stretch, within twenty-five
miles of Boston, is still unwritten. A
short piece, flanked by tall pines, is
fittingly known as Cathedral Drive, for
the whole region invites from the pet-
tiness and vanity of the trolley world.
It is a consoling thought that the in-
evitable electric can never completely
spoil this section. Nature's outline is
too picturesque in Acton for intersect-
ing street railways to ever make a mere
steel chess-board of the old town as
they have often done in the open level
parts of the state. The whole senti-
ment of the locality is in its half-hidden
and unexpected features of landscape.
There is a curious mixture of frank-
ness and reticence in the expression on
nature's face. An authority on the
topography of Massachusetts has com-
mented on the strange uncanny hol-
lows and dimples, the inexplicable
ridges that suggest human formation.
The touch of Nature invited the
touch of Fate. In the early times it
was a place of concealment. Its secret
nooks have always been connected with
stories of buried treasure and the
abode of pirates and disguised noble-

men. Just one hundred years ago,
banished persons of rank in these very
woods were brooding over plans for
the murder of Napoleon, but their tale
has remained untold except in the
homes of the old families. Nothing
has ever lifted the veil from this mys-
terious legendary lore. The unimag-
inative historians have been content in
recording a faithful list of civic and
military officers and in telling of the
fight with the mother country at the
North Bridge, April 19th, 1775, and
the fight ever since with the mother
town over the supreme glory of that
day. Lowell speaks of taking down
from his bookcase "a volume sap-
less as the shelf it stood on, and re-
mote from all present sympathy with
man or nature as a town history."

The people of Acton are not a peo-
ple of legend and tradition. It is in the
practical and not the mythical that they
show their quality. There is little heart-
felt interest in anything that is not
near and present. Life has a dry,
peaceful and wealth-seeking same-
ness. The town has become isolated
by reason of the railroad development
of this part of the state. All the lines
have swept around, instead of passing
through this hill town. While from
the car window the canvas of the last
two centuries seems to unroll as you
pass through the open plain of Con-
cord, history is sealed in the wooded
hills of Acton. An incident here con-

Acton Common, Looking West

nected with the rise or fall of a great
European family is lost.

If Longfellow had lived in Acton, he
would have found in the tales of
Brooks Tavern more than he found
in those of the Wayside Inn.

Concord is the oldest town above
tidewater in America. For the first
century of its existence, Acton was
included in the limits of Concord. One
of the most influential families in Ac-
ton came from Sudbury, hence there
was always an intimacy between the
three towns. From Rocky Guzzle,
whose tale of life and death we have
tried to weave together from frag-
ments of tradition, roads lead in three
directions to the respective centres of
these three towns. One hundred years
ago this system of turnpikes connect-
ed three of the best known inns in
Middlesex County, — Howe's Tavern
in Sudbury (Longfellow's Wayside
Inn), Wright's Tavern in Concord,
the headquarters of Major Pitcairn in
332

1775, and Brooks Tavern in Acton.
The names of these taverns appeared
often in the early records of the three
towns in connection with elections,
training days and ordination dinners.
When the Rev. Marshall Shedd, father
of the late Professor W. G. T. Shedd,
of Union Seminary, occupied the pul-
pit of Acton parish, the Rev. Abiel
Holmes of Cambridge, father of Oli-
ver Wendell Holmes, was entertained
at Brooks Tavern.

The most important material, how-
ever, that I have in regard to Brooks
Tavern is in statements made in
my boyhood by Miss Elizabeth N.
Brooks, who was born in the
historic inn, and who was six years
old when the events narrated took
place. One hundred years ago this
Tavern was owned and kept by my
great grandfather, Captain Paul
Brooks, who had inherited it from his
father. For over a century this pub-
lic house on the northeast slope of

Acton Common, Looking East

Acton Common was an opposite
neighbor of the old manse now stand-
ing, with its spreading gambrel roof
and small window panes strongly re-
sembling the Red Horse Tavern of
Sudbury.

"Built in the old Colonial day
When men lived in a grander way."

I remember Brooks Tavern,

"As somewhat fallen to decayj
With weather stains upon the wall,
And chimneys high and tiled and tall."

The upper corner blocks of the
front door frame were carved with
concentric circles, a design we often
see to-day in colonial architecture,
but these blocks must have been out
of all proportion to the casement, for
the wooden rings were of prodigious
size. The effect was also greatly
heightened by the singular fact that
the circular spots remained , white,
while the rest of the building had
grown black. When a boy, on my

way to school I had to pass this house
and I felt as if I were undergoing in-
spection from an old lady wearing
spectacles. The stare of those great
eyes over the front door certainly
made the old inn more unreal and
ghostly, for it gave the building an
expression which only age could ac-
quire. Few were alive who could re-
member when it was used as a tavern,
but the tales that had come down in
our family quickened my imagination,
and it had a strong historic influence
over my early schooldays.

But in those days the crooked old
highway was even more suggestive to
me of the supernatural. It swept
around from the front of the Tavern,
almost to the rear, and then descended
into the valley with a dark serpentine
course, turning one way and then
another so abruptly that when the old
stages started for Concord and Sud-
bury they were lost sight of as quickly
as if they had rushed down a spiral

333

334

TALE OF BROOKS TAVERN

Town Hail and Davis Monument. The

former on the site of the meet-

ing-house Built in 1807 and

Burned in 1862

stairway. It seemed as if the trees bare-
ly stood aside to let the carriage pass
and closed immediately behind it.
The land slopes so strikingly on all
sides at Rocky Guzzle that one seems to
have reached a depth below the sur-
face of the earth. The forefinger on all
the guide-boards directing to this
place point downward. The graceful
curves of this old road have played
many a trick and caused many a
fright. The road was straightened
and widened and the adjoining forest
partly cleared before my time, but no
house has ever been built between the
site of the Brooks Tavern on the top
of the hill and the graveyard gate half
a mile below, and the grass-grown
traces of the old winding roadway on
either side of the present straight

course give to an Acton boy his most
impressive picture of the past. In
short, this old turnpike from Brooks
Tavern to Rocky Guzzle does more to
recreate the historic scenes of Acton
than all the pages in the town's safety
vault.

On the night of April 18th, 1775,
an unknown horseman, sent by Paul
Revere, after arousing Captain Rob-
bins, not far from the Concord line,
rode up to Brooks Tavern and the
commotion of the morning of the 19th
was witnessed by the two eyes over
the front doorway of this public
house, as Captain Isaac Davis formed
his company of Minute Men on the
Green, from whence he marched to
the North Bridge in Concord. Three
days later, over the same road, his
body and that of Hosmer and Hay-
ward, who were killed on the same
day, were borne to their graves in this
old burial yard. But it was not to
be their resting place. In 1851, the
bodies of these "embattled farmers"
were disinterred and given a military
burial in the tomb provided by the
Commonwealth. On Acton Common,
the State built a monument, the prin-
cipal feature of which was a shaft of
rough hewn granite one hundred feet
high. At its completion, there was a
great celebration; and over this very
road, passing the Tavern, a great pro-
cession moved.

The old Brooks Tavern had kept
its eyes on the world, without blink-
ing, through all these years. Many
a night in the winter of '75,

"The windows of the wayside inn
Gleamed red with firelight through the
leaves."

The Minute Men of Acton discussed

TALE OF BROOKS TAVERN

335

world-politics around the blazing
logs in this quaint old mansion long
before the Concord Fight, and in the
Brooks Tavern was formed the reso-
lution that "fired the shot heard round
the world."

On April 19th, 1851, the world
recognized, through the sanction
of the State of Massachusetts,
that this forgotten little colonial
town of Acton furnished the men
to lead the column that on the
old Bridge causeway made the
first organized resistance in Amer-
ica to the troops of King George III.
Ah, that monument dedication was a
day for this place of slumber and
dreams! What banners, what flags,
what martial music. The echo of
cannon was like thunder over this
wooded slope, as the Revolutionary
heroes were escorted from their old
to their new sepulchre. The Gover-
nor, George S. Boutwell, rode in state
and with him United States Senators
Robert C. Winthrop and Robert Ran-
toul, Judge E. Rockwood Hoar and
the poet of the day, the brilliant John
Pierpont. At the exercises in the
mammoth tent most appreciative let-
ters were read from President Millard
Fillmore, Secretary of State Marcy
and Daniel Webster.

Since that occasion, a long line of
notabilities has visited this spot, driv-
en over this old road in state at times
of other celebrations. The list includes
eight Governors, — Boutwell, Banks,
Butler, Long, Brackett, Russell, Green-
halge and Wolcott; one Attorney-Gen-
eral and one Secretary of the Treasury.
At the time of the Peace Jubilee, Pres-
ident Grant made a brief stop «in the
town. Every Memorial Day the veter-
ans follow the strains of a dirge over

Desk and Plates from Brooks Tavern

this road, and several times the sur-
viving members of the first regiment
that responded to Lincoln's call in '61,
— "The old Sixth that went through
Baltimore," have made a spectacle
here. But once this avenue to the Tav-
ern was filled with an advancing army.
Rocky Guzzle was crowded for many
hours with blue and red soldiers and
marked with innumerable footsteps.
General Butler paid the rare military
tribute to the old town and its Revolu-
tionary martyrs, soon after the Civil
War, by marching the whole militia
of the state, cavalry, artillery and in-
fantry, from its encampment at Con-
cord to the Davis Monument, and hon-
ored it nearly all day by the lowering
of passing colors. It was a pageant
never to be forgotten, and a salute at a
soldiers' grave never before known in
the country.

Among the famous ones of the world
who have travelled along this high-
way, may be mentioned all the prom-
inent Anti-Slavery agitators. Garri-
son once opened an address here with

336

TALE OF BROOKS TAVERN

the Scriptural paraphrase, "They that
turn the world upside down have come
to Acton." Whittier planted a pear
tree, which still grows, near the site
of the Tavern. It is also possible to
conjure up the figure of Emerson rid-
ing in a chaise to conduct a funeral
service in Acton at the home of a dis-
tant relative, Hon. Winthrop Emer-
son Faulkner. The whole town seemed
under the spell of a tragedy, — the son
of Colonel Faulkner, a Harvard stu-
dent, had been instantly killed in a
railway accident at Porter's Station,
Cambridge, when on his way to col-
lege. Emerson spoke of his interest
in young Faulkner as a friend and
classmate of his own son, a frequent
visitor in his Concord home, and
closed his remarks with these words:
"We commit him to the Fates."

But it is not to the Minute Men of
the Revolution, nor the company of
great ones of the last half-century
that our tale relates; and the ghosts
that are encountered at Rocky Guzzle
do not walk out through the cemetery
gateway. There is another personage
whose presence is as real to me as if
he passed me, whenever I walk
through this place. The dust of a no-
bleman is beneath my feet.

The legend has never been put on
paper, and it is no easy matter to con-
nect the links in the chain of tradition.

The name Rocky Guzzle is bewil-
dering. It is not suggested by any
peculiarity of the spot. There is no
locality in the town so devoid of rocks,
and if there were a rocky throat, there
is no stream for it to swallow. It is
a quiet little hollow in a sandy forma-
tion. Such an inconsistency never
fastens itself so strongly as a common
household name in any community,

without a grim legend behind it. A
name, like money, has to have an in-
trinsic or redeemable value or it will
not pass with the Yankee.

Two observations gave me a clew to
the name. While living in Plymouth,
I have noticed the tendency of sea-
faring men to substitute the termin-
ology of water with that of land and
vice versa ; a sheltered anchorage is
called the "Cow Pasture," a woodland
lake, "Billington Sea." This inter-
change of designations always points
to a sailor. My other observation was
at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, where I
found another Rocky Guzzle, a wild
ledgy entrance to a cave where the tide
enters with great force and sound, and
an old sea captain told me this name
was taken from an original Rocky
Guzzle on the channel coast of Eng-
land.

Unquestionably, then, some man
who had sailed the seas and had also
been an actor here in this lonely wood-
ed vale gave the name ; some soul that
had been so intimately connected with
this spot that it heard in the whispering
of these dark old pines the gurgling
waves around some boulder hung with
sea-weed. Some imagination must
have been stirred most passionately to
have even thought in this dull corner
of the flood-tide beating against a
headland on a far off shore. There
must have been a tragedy here. The
name is not one of common-place as-
sociations. It is intelligible to me only
by the tale I heard when a boy, which
I now give.

There are many persons scattered
throughout the country who distinctly
remember the legend in large black let-
ters on the white gable of old Acton
meeting-house, "1807." That was a

Old Brooks Homestead
Only house standing that witnessed these events

dramatic year, crowded with the do-
ings of the great men of the world.
In that year the Sons of the Revolu-
tion, as they met one another on the
Acton cart-tracks and bridle-paths, al-
ways talked about two things, their
new meeting-house and Napoleon. The
French Emperor was in the middle of
his career, — not a Republican, as he
appeared at the beginning and end,
but a King of Kings. He was having
his own way most freely. Europe was
in a general panic. Its balance of
power had passed away. Prussia had
just signed the most humiliating treaty
of Tilsit. Napoleon had told Goethe
that the character of Caesar had not
been properly represented on the stage.
His mastery of the continent was in-
spiring him to reach beyond. President
Jefferson received information from

John Ouincy Adams, then in the Unit-
ed States Senate, that Napoleon had
determined to conquer the British
provinces and also the United States,
and form a monarchy under General
Moreau. The nineteenth century
opened with far greater perplexities
than those of our own time. It was a
time of contrasts, inconsistencies, wa-
verings. The leaders could hardly un-
derstand the scene around them. Many
were questioning the truth of the prin-
ciples that brought about the horrors
of the French Revolution, for that
mighty movement had turned out con-
trary to all expectation. There were
Frenchmen who looked upon all that
had happened in the last fifteen years
as a dream. They were still brooding
over the assassination of Napoleon
and intending to call back the "Old

337

Wilde IMemorial Library

Family." In England, Pitts' com-
manding figure had passed away in
disappointment. All seemed darkness
ahead, and no trusted pilot. In Amer-
ica there was a tragic irony in the posi-
tion of Jefferson. The only success of
his first term as President had been
in a measure that violated all his party
views, — the purchase of Louisiana,
and now as he entered upon his second
term there appeared such a storm
about to burst from the sea that he be-
gan to doubt the truth of his own
words :

"It will ever be in our power to keep so
even a stand between France and England
as to inspire a wish in neither to throw us
into the scale of his adversary."

This year, 1807, was the critical
point in Jefferson's career, for he never
escaped from the misfortune of the
Embargo. It was also the year of
Aaron Burr's intrigue. A republic had
been resolved into an empire in the old
world and many feared that an empire
in the new world would replace the re-
public. As adventurers from New
33S

England and New York sought the
Mississippi Valley, so exiles from Eu-
rope sought Massachusetts. The whole
world was moving, and in that event-
ful year of 1807 the whole world was
a field for a great game of skill and
chance.

One move in this game was doubt-
less made in Brooks Tavern.

We look back nearly a century to a
summer day at half-past twelve
o'clock. Captain Paul Brooks, the
landlord, is standing with some other
villagers before the Tavern on the hill.
They have been drawn out from the
cool retreat into the sun by the sound of
voices far below in Rocky Guzzle. It
is like the singing of an army. Nearer
and nearer it comes, as the Boston
stage climbs around each bend of the
steep winding turnpike. Ten minutes
pass, and at last the huge lumbering
coach and four slowly come through
the trees. With no flourish, but with a
heavy panting tug, this unusual load
of passengers is hauled to the great
front doorway. It is a company of
sailors from Boston, hired by the Ac-

TALE OF BROOKS TAVERN

339

ton Selectmen to raise the timbers in
the frame of the high tower of the
new meeting-house on the Common
near by. The young fellows tumble
down from the top and out through the
door and into the old-fashioned dining
room. They make two long rows of
weather-beaten, coarse featured faces.
Yet as the landlord's niece, Caroline,
passed the open hall door, she saw one
face so unlike the others that the whole
group at once assumed a dignity and
mystery. The same bronzed skin, the
same shock of hair ; but eyes that could
see, where the others merely looked ;
lines of brow, cheek, nose and mouth
that recited history and could not be
hushed. It was one of those rare, fin-
ished countenances that have a dimpled
chin and are still strong, — the combi-
nation of delicate feeling and intense
force; inherited cultivation without
loss of virility. .The next time this
young woman of sixteen, without her-
self being seen, stole a glance at the

young man of twenty-five, she noted
another thing, — one of those trifles
that contain a biography — the sailor's
plain collar was relieved by a scarf and
bow of the finest quality of blue silk.

Meanwhile this exceptional face had
not been unnoticed by others as the
group entered the Tavern. The vil-
lagers did not go home but remained
just outside. While the dishes were
being passed inside the open windows,
we may be sure a rich dish of gossip
was furnished the surrounding loafers.

Two weeks passed, the bell-top
tower was completed, and the sailors
returned by the stage to Boston, — all
but the one with the dimpled chin. He
read long letters from over-sea. He
wrote long letters, but his correspond-
ence never came or went by the stage
which was the regular mail carrier.
He often took the landlord's favorite
mare and rode down to Rocky Guzzle.
Here he was seen many times with an-
other horseman. This mounted com-

The Old Manse, Remodeled 1780

340

TALE OF BROOKS TAVERN

panion was a bent, wizened, twisted
old man who always met the younger
one by emerging from a dense bridle
path that led to Faulkner's Mills. At
the first house on that trail the old man
lived during that summer. He was
reputed to be a pirate who had come
to the same house twenty years before,
and was then thought to have buried
treasure in Rocky Guzzle. In fact, he
was once seen pacing from the hollow
along the ridge to the west.

The spell over this spot cast by the
presence of this hideous figure was
broken as the summer waned. Moon-
light after moonlight the young sailor
and the landlord's niece walked to-
gether to Rocky Guzzle. Events, how-
ever, were moving swiftly during that
wonderful year.

Aaron Burr was brought to trial in
the late summer, and a conspiracy to
divide the states was checked, not to
reappear again for half a century.
The peaceful policy of the President
was changing by the English outrage
on the frigate Chesapeake. Napoleon
and Alexander were mapping out the
world anew.

One day in the early autumn the
Boston stage was again awaited with
great expectancy. As the coach drew
up before the door of this primitive
tavern, only three passengers were no-
ticed by the staring villagers. The
first to alight was the landlord himself,
whose whole bearing was more full of
dignity than his townsmen had ever
known before. All instinctively felt
that the guests who followed the Cap-
tain must be men of high station and
great repute, and yet no one was aware
that they were no less personages than
the second and sixth Presidents of the
United States. The presence of John

Adams and his son John Quincy
Adams for an hour in the Brooks Tav-
ern is recorded in this legend, although
all is silent in regard to their mission
here. The inference is strong that in
theweb of world-politics then weaving, .
one thread was traced to Acton. Cap-
tain Brooks, learning that the two dis-
tinguished statesmen and diplomats
were stopping over night with a friend
in Concord only four miles away, rode
over in the morning and induced them
to return with him on the noon stage,
We may be sure that the disguised
young nobleman with the dimpled chin
was the magnet that drew them to the
inn. Whether they recognized and
identified him as one whom they had
met under the skies of France remains
untold. As a souvenir of that day when
Acton had as her guests two Presi
dents of the United States, I treasure
the office desk and two plates from
the Brooks Tavern dinner set. These
are the only heirlooms in existence
connected with the ancient inn.

There was a Son of the Revolution,
a descendant of one. of the Minute
Men of 1775, who watched all that
took place at the Tavern with a jeal-
ous eye. He was a thoughtful young
man and could talk intelligently on
the present international complications.
He had a deep interest in the success
of the Federal party, but now had for-
gotten everything in the world save
his mad desire to win the landlord's
niece at any cost. The fearful struggle
that was going on in his innermost life
sometimes betrayed itself through the
mask that he had worn most of his life.
A certain loyalty to the Puritan ideal
had kept this young man in a fixed
course, but now he seemed to be trying
to reconcile himself to himself. One

TALE OF BROOKS TAVERN

341

part of his nature rose up and de-
nounced the other. The only time,
however, that he had ever been seen
without his conventional, guarded ex-
pression was on his meeting, near
Rocky Guzzle, two young people walk-
ing together, — the nobleman with the
dimpled chin and Caroline with the
playful blue eyes and wavy blonde
hair. Then he set his teeth.

At last the Count disappeared, leav-
ing no trace of his departure or his
destiny. The hour of the coming of
the stage then became a tragic hour.
The landlord assumed a more serious
pose, as in the front doorway he count-
ed the arriving guests, and when the
horses were brought to a standstill af-
ter their half day's journey, the face of
Caroline sadly withdrew from the open
window.

More days passed, and the towns-
people gossiped. They needed no sum-
moning for that purpose. When any-
thing out of the usual run occurred,
every shade of opinion was aired in
the old inn, and as the Boston stage'ap-
peared, usually all talked at once.
One remark is preserved of this village
tattle. A baby had just been' named
for the President, Thomas Jefferson.
It was mentioned in the bar-room,
whereupon a decided man said, "Name
it Judas !" During all these days of
idle chat, the color was fading from
the nervous, wistful, living portrait
framed in the open casement at the
. day's eventful hour.

One fine noon, in the time of short
and frosty days when the stretch be-
tween Boston and Acton was covered
in one hour's less driving, suddenly,
without a moment's notice, the big
stage drew smartly up to the old house.
No one awaited it at the door, the cus-

tomary loiterers had not put in an ap-
pearance. There was a wildness in the
voice of the driver that startled all in
the tavern. The villagers came run-
ning as if they had heard the deep
tones of the meeting-house bell ringing
an alarm. Something unusual had hap-
pened,— the news of another dazzling
conspiracy to form an empire in the
Mississippi Valley, perhaps ; a revolu-
tion quickly growing out of the un-
known Southwest ; an angry stroke of
Napoleon ; another insult by some
British ship ; a declaration of war by
Congress, which had been specially
called together a month sooner than
usual, or a message from Jefferson.
Those were days of feverish waiting,
— anything might happen.

It was the driver, forgetting his
team and hurrying into the Tavern,
around whom all crowded. In his
hands was the fine blue silken scarf
which everyone instantly recognized as
the neckwear always worn by the
young nobleman, stained with blood
and found beside the road at Rocky
Guzzle. All is soon told now. Only
one more broken heart, and life-long
.mood of sorrow. Only one more loved
and lost.

All down through the generations
since this mysterious disappearance,
there have been strange stories
of a murder and the manner of
it, but these tales have all dif-
fered. There is one tradition that
the Count came to this country
because of the hostility of Napoleon
to his family ; that he mixed among
the sailors on the voyage and learned
from them of an old pirate who had
buried treasure near a spot he had
named Rocky Guzzle ; that the Count
accompanied the sailors to Acton mere-

342

TALE OF BROOKS TAVERN

1 y through curiosity ; that he visited
the pirate simply to hear his tales, and
the jealous rival of the Count for
Caroline's favor worked on the pirate's
fears of capture, until the Count, dis-
covering the changed feeling in the
old man, had secretly fled to Boston,
but was returning for Caroline when
the pirate, who always haunted the
borders of Rocky Guzzle, intercepted
and shot him. There is another tra-
dition that the Count had been be-
friended by the pirate years before ;
that the pirate enabled him to get away
from France during the reign of ter-
ror; that they lived together on the
shore of the original Rocky Guzzle in
England, and that they met in this spot
in the new world by previous agree-
ment and here laid new plans, being
really accessories in a great political
scheme.

There is a third tradition, similar
to the second, that the Count had pa-
pers from Napoleon and concealed his
real imperial plotting by associating
his presence with search for buried
gold ; that the pirate took written mes-
sages between the Count and another
confederate in Boston ; that the Count
killed the pirate and purposely left his
own blue silken scarf to cover up his
deed.

The next year after this incident
Captain Paul Brooks sold the tavern,
removed to Westmoreland, N. H.,
and became the landlord of a Con-
necticut River inn. He is buried in
the old cemetery in that town. His
widow, with her three daughters, re-
turned to Acton, and for four gener-
ations all these traditions have been
handed down in the old Brooks
House, which is still standing, as in
1807, directly opposite the site of the

church on which the young nobleman
worked and the present town hall.
Here, it is said, the nobleman often
called, and since the burning of the
old meeting house in 1862 and the
razing of the tavern in 1873 it remains
the only building on the Common
connected with the tale.

It is impossible at this distance of
time to sift the legends and find the
true one. At any rate, setting aside all
myths, we have the never-to-be-for-
gotten fact that when, forty years ago,
a survey for a railroad was made
through Rocky Guzzle, and the en-
gineer for some reason caused some
of the bank on the east side of the road
to be taken away, the workmen in
digging came upon a human skeleton
and a few French coins.

There is also the additional fact that
after the discovery of the skeleton a
descendant of the man with whom the
old pirate had taken refuge drove reg-
ularly at sunset into the woods near
this lonesome place, tied his horse to a
tree, and passed the night in digging
for buried gold. The holes he then
made are visible today and there is a
belief among his neighbors that his
effort was not a failure, for not long
after he abandoned his strange freak
he paid off a large, long-standing
mortgage on his farm, and when he
died left an estate whose accumulation
could in no other way be accounted
for.

Rocky G azzle will forever keep its
secret, but the facts we know verify
the legend that it has a real secret of
life and death, and though it grows
more puzzling to reveal in clear outline
the dead and gone, still we can never
pass the place without remembering
that human nature when it is alive is

LULLABY

343

always and everywhere human nature,
and that the world over a pretty face,
a young, knightly figure, a man and a
woman walking together along a
wooded road, have been enough to
arouse jealousy and make the whole
tragic plot of hate and murder.

Dr. Harris Cowdrey, the best re-
membered physician of my boyhood,
once told me that after a severe surgi-
cal operation he always rode- in his gig
down to Rocky Guzzle for rest and
soothing influence.

Rocky Guzzle is an ideal spot to
which to take a friend or a book. The
voices of the pines around the old
graveyard are never still. It is not

difficult to imagine above the ascend-
ing lines of oak and apple trees a cath-
edral spire in the hill town, and a fine
old medieval inn. The loveliness of
nature's dimple recalls the young no-
bleman with the dimpled chin, and if
you have a speck of poetry in your
mind, you will smell the sea and find in
the scent the flavor of a long voyage.
You will have a greater rapture than
when near the scene of some gloomy,
old-world tragedy, for this spot is
sacred to the memory of two worlds,
the new and the old, — the last reai
struggle of the then two opposing
principles, Aristocracy and Democ-
racy.

Lullaby

By A. B. de Mille

HEART that is weary,
Eyes that would weep—
Night comes, my Dearie,
Sleep.

Now in the gloaming

Out of the west,
Dream-things are roaming —

Rest.

Stars without number,
Peace without bound ;

Hush thee and slumber
Sound.

Over my Dearie,

Night, still and deep,
Day was so weary —

Sleep.

A Gastronomic Tragedy

By Temple Bailey

MRS. DUFOUR turned the
pillows and rolled her hus-
band's chair out into the
sunlight. Then she sat
down on the bench beside Mary.

"He don't seem to get strong," she
said.

Her big, red face took on a worried
look as he gazed at her delicate
spouse. He sat hunched up in his roll-
ing chair, his pinched face perfectlv
expressionless, his weak eyes blinking
in the glare. Only his wrinkled hands,
clutching the robe that lay across his
lap, showed the agitation that was
within him.

Mary Barton thought of those
hands as they had been thirty years
before. Then they had been soft and
white, with almond shaped nails, —
hands so different from those of the
rough farmers of her own village, that
they had caught her heart and held it
until now.

Not that she loved the man before
her. The man she loved was the slen-
der youth with the foreign air, whose
picture was buried deep in the bottom
of a lacquered box, together with two
precious notes and a lock of jet black
hair. This wrinkled, shuddering old
man had nothing in common with that
boy of graceful deportment and soft
sentences, who had led on her imagi-
nation, until when he chose another
woman for his wife, she had nothing
left to give any one else, and so old
344

maidism and old womanhood had
come upon her.

"What would you do?" Mrs. Du-
four lowered her voice, as her husband
nodded. His hands relaxed, his little
round bald head dropped back, and he
slept, the unbeautiful sleep of the aged.

"I have had the best doctors, and
tried all sorts of treatment. You can't
suggest anything, can you?" she fin-
ished helplessly.

"Perhaps it is France that he
wants."

At the word, the bundle of inertness
opened its eyes, and Mary saw for a
moment in them the pleading expres-
sion that had belonged to the youth of
long ago.

"France," he murmured, and his
hands went out with an entreating
gesture.

"There, you see," his wife ejacu-
lated, irritably. "He wants to go, but
what in the world he thinks I can do
with him on a boat, when he can't
crawl around here, I can't see."

"Perhaps," suggested Mary, with
the tenderness born of the love that
had been, "it would do him good to
see the shores of his native country,
the houses of his own people, to hear
his own speech again — " She stopped,
for there was no response in the face
of the invalid. "He might enjoy the
food," she went on, and the impassive
face began to take on lines of eager-
ness.

A GASTRONOMIC TRAGEDY

345

But Mrs. Dufour was loud in her
denunciation of Continental cooking.

"Such messes. The sauces are
enough for me. Gaston wanted to
show me how to make them, but I
won't have him killed with such stuff.
And frogs' legs !" Her voice was full
of repressed horror.

The old man shivered hopelessly
and Mary rose to go.

"Wait a minute, Mary," said Mrs.
Dufour, "while I get John to come and
roll him. He hates to be left alone."

Mrs. Dufour rustled up the path,
and Mary looked after her, noting the
heavy figure, the badly cut gown, and
the impossible bonnet. Susan Brooks
had been a pretty girl of a hard, coarse
type, and she had developed into a
hard, coarse, old woman, without the
youth which had given her comeliness.

"Mary !" the air was cut by the thin
voice.

She turned to the sick man. He
was leaning towards her, his face
lighted up with an eagerness that was
almost maniacal. There was color in
his cheeks, and his hands plucked
feverishly at her gown.

"I am not sick. I am not sick." His
tongue stumbled over the words.

She looked at him, uncomprehend-
ing.

"I am starved — starved. She gives
me nothing that' I like. I have told
you — years ago," the graceful gesture
of his old hands waved them both back
into the past, "of Oscar, my friend —
in Paris. Make her let me go. I
would go to him and he would give
me coffee and rolls, the little white
ones with the brown tops. She gives
me coffee that is of grain because of
my digestion. I am not a horse, I
cannot eat oats and ozzer sings." He

was twisting his English, a thing he
had not done for years.

"What can I do?" asked Mary.

"Tell her to let me go. Tell her."

The rustle of the silk linings an-
nounced the return of his wife, and
he sank back in seeming apathy, as she
came up with the man.

Mary and Mrs. Dufour followed be-
hind the wheeled chair until they
reached the gate. Then Mary stopped.

"Good by, Susan," she said. "I
go the other way. I think if I were
you, I should take Gaston over to
France."

"Now, Mary Barton, how do you
think I can stand such a trip?" Mrs.
Dufour's red face looked like a petu-
lant child's as Mary kissed it.

"I am sure you will do it, Susan, if
it is best for him."

As Mary went down the road, it
seemed to her that nothing in the little
village, except herself, had changed in
the last thirty years. It had been up
this same street that she had tripped
as a girl. She remembered the pink
organdie that she had worn the day
that the French schoolmaster had
walked with her, and the way her hair
was curled and parted. The old crab-
apple tree in front of the Pattersons'
was in full bloom then as now, and
the robins were investigating the ten-
der green of the lawn. How Gaston
had admired this first view of a New
England spring ! The enthusiam of
his artistic nature had brought into
life beauties which she had never dis-
covered.

Poor little girl! Mary Barton
thought of her as of some one else.
That tender heart and trustful mind
were long since dead, and there lived
only a tall, gray, old woman, of quiet

346

A GASTRONOMIC TRAGEDY

peace, who stepped stiffly across the
road and opened the gate of her tiny
cottage, then stopped for a moment
to look at the sun setting behind the
big house on the hill, where, by virtue
of his wife's money, Gaston Dufour
lived, the wealthiest man in town.

The Gaston Du fours went abroad,
as Mary had suggested. Mary re-
ceived a letter from Susan in the late
summer, dated Paris, which ended
thus :

"We are at the best English hotel.
I have had a dreadful time with Gas-
ton. He wants to eat everything, so
the other day I went out and bought
some things, and now I don't let him
go to the table. My dear Mary, in
this I am firm, he shall not ruin his
stomach with French messes. We
stay here for a few weeks longer and
then I shall bring him home, and get
rid of all this worry. We are trying
a nut diet now."

Poor Gaston !

Mary heard nothing more, and the
summer passed. One autumn evening
she sat in her little sitting room by the
light of her open fire. On the hearth
was the other member of her family,
a big black cat, Demosthenes, the de-
scendant of generations of black
felines who had occupied the post of
honor at the Barton fireside. Out of
doors the wind was rising, and there
was a hint of frost in the air. It was
on such a night as this, Mary pon-
dered, that the young Gaston Dufour
had rapped at the door of her mother's
house to ask his way to the nearest
inn. Mary had opened the door, and
after that, twice a week, the young
Frenchman had found his way to the
little house.

Those had been perfect weeks in
the girl's quiet existence. Gaston had
talked of "twin souls" and of much of
which she had never heard. Her trust
in him had been the trust of the self-
controlled New England maiden,
raised in the belief that regular weekly
visits from a man constituted a pledge
as binding as matrimony. But Gas-
ton had been bred in a land where love
and matrimony were conducted on dif-
ferent lines. Mary might be his twin
soul, but Susan Brooks had money.

Therefore one day he proposed for-
mally for Susan's hand and was ac-
cepted on the spot.

Gaston told Mary of his engage-
ment, frankly.

"You are more dear to me, but you
have no dot," he explained ardently.

Mary's ancestors had not fought for
nothing, and she bore this blow with
a fortitude inherited from the sturdy
stock. She dismissed Gaston with a
dignity from which there was no ap-
peal. Heretofore Gaston had been
told the story of her love in the tender
droop of the eyes, in the welcoming
blush, and in the trembling lip, but
from the moment of his engagement
he saw no evidence in Mary of any-
thing but the most casual acquaint-
anceship. She continued her friend-
ship for Susan, a friendship which had
begun in their early school days long
before there could have been any ques-
tion of congeniality, and she came and
went at the Dufour residence when-
ever the helpless Susan needed her.

These were the things of thirty years
ago. Mary brushed away the cobweb
of memory as she rose to get supper.
Demosthenes rose also, and went with
her into the pantry. Mary Barton's
pantry was redolent with the atmos-

A GASTRONOMIC TRAGEDY

347

phere of the perfect housekeeper.
With visions of her rule over Gaston's
household had come the desire to com-
pete with the wonderful cooks of
which he had told her. So she had
begged for recipes from the young
Oscar who was making name and
fame in Paris.

When the reason for endeavor in
this line was removed, she did not
lose her interest in it, indeed she
turned to it as her only occupation,
with the result that she was considered
the best cook for miles around, al-
though the country people who were
raised on certain indispensables could
not appreciate her triumphs in the
making of sauces, salads and entrees.

"Demos," said Mary, "this is your
kind of supper." Demos sniffed
ecstatically as the silvery fish was-
taken out of the refrigerator and pre-
pared for the broiler.

Then the two went into the kitchen,
and Demos watched his mistress as she
wiped the lettuce daintily and chopped
sweet peppers and chives for her salad.
The fish was put on the broiler and a
savory and delectable sauce set bub-
bling in a little saucepan on top of the
stove.

Demos again followed his mistress
as she went into the sitting room,
where she drew the table in front of
the fire and set it quickly for one.
Then back to the kitchen again, to turn
the broiler and stir the sauce, and at
last the fish was served, its perfect
brown harmonizing with the quartered
lemon and cress which surrounded it.

The feast being ready, Demos sat
down to watch Mary, curling his tail
around him tightly, as if to hold in
his too-eager anticipation.

Before the silver knife had been put

into the fish, however, there came a
faint rap at the door. Mary rose and
opened it, and started back as she saw
the white face of an old man peering
in. J -

She controlled herself quickly.

"Come in, Mr. Dufour," she said.

He came into the old room, which
should have been thick with memories
of youth and love ; but his eyes saw
only the feast.

"I smelled your coffee, and I made
John stop and let me come in. Susan
won't know. She's gone on ahead to
open the house," he chuckled as he
tugged at his coat.

Mary helped him, struggling all the
time with a sense of an unconventional
situation.

"Sit down here." She indicated a
place at the little table.

There was no further word of invi-
tation or acceptance. She knew and
he knew that he had come for the food,
not for her. As she laid a second
place, she looked at his old face wist-
fully. "Does he remember nothing,
nothing?" She drew herself together
sharply. "You are an old woman,
Mary Barton," she whispered, "and he
is an old — old — man."

She brought rolls, white inside and
brown without. He ate the fish de-
vouringly.

"This is Oscar's sauce," he cried,
after the first mouthful. "You excel.
Mademoiselle." His hand was on his
heart with half-forgotten courtesy.

When Mary brought the lettuce,
pale green and white and crisp, with
the peppers, the oil, the olives, the
vinegar, and all the other concomi-
tants of a perfect salad, his old fingers
trembled with eagerness.

"I will mix it. It shall be a salad

348

A GASTRONOMIC TRAGEDY

of history. You shall tell of it in the
years to come."

But his hand trembled, and the
oil was spilled over the tablecloth.
Mary repaired the damage, and the
.second trial resulted in the proper
mixing.

When the coffee was poured, black
and aromatic, he stood up with his
hands on his heart, and waved his
hand to his hostess.

"I drink to the queen of cooks."

In spite of a bewildered sense of un-
reality, Mary thrilled at the compli-
ment.

Over the coffee Gaston became talk-
ative.

"She drove me mad. She has no
fine feeling. I have not complained in
all these years at the awful things she
cooks. But to be in Paris, to be near
Oscar. To have him bring to me a
dish of mushrooms, stuffed with oyster
crabs, and to see her, the vandal, the
uncomprehending one, the woman who
knows nothing," — his hands tore dt
his thin hair, — "to see her take them
from me and give to me a sof ' boil egg
and a health biscuit. I rave and I
rave, and she bring me back."

Tears of disappointment stood in his
eyes.

"I should have marry you," he said.
"You have ze fine feeling."

Mary blushed to the roots of her
soft, gray hair. It sounded positively
immoral to hear this old Frenchman
talk of her as his possible wife, — this
old, raving, eager gourmand.

He felt in his pocket and found a
cigar.

"Susan wouldn't let me," he mum-
bled, "but she won't know."

Mary left him then, and gave Demos
the scanty remains of the fish, setting

before him, also, a compensating sau-
cer of cream. Then she cleared the
table, set it back in the corner, and
went to the pantry to put things in
order.

As the fragrance of the cigar stole
through the rooms, Mary felt the
subtle influence of the presence of the
masculine in her maidenly home. She
looked at Gaston through the pantry
door. Only the back of his head could
be seen. So might the lover of her
youth have sat, when he had become
the companion of her old age. She
came out into the sitting room, her
heart softened by the moment of im-
agination.

The peace of the little home was
softening him, too, and bringing into
life the petrified emotions of his long
sealed heart. The old clock struck,
and the chiming notes awoke the mem-
ories of the days of long ago.

He looked at Mary as she came
towards him. Her slender figure still
had in it something of the grace of
youth. Her soft, gray hair formed a
frame for her delicate face, her laven-
der gown was cut with taste and a
sense of the artistic.

He held out his hands as she came
towards him.

"Mary," he said, and his face was
transformed. "Mary."

There was a hurried step on tho
porch, and without knocking, Mrs.
Dufour entered.

The nervous frown on her face
deepened as she saw her husband's
cigar.

"What are you thinking of, Mary?
He will kill himself. He ought not
to smoke, and the idea of his walking
from the carriage alone. I told John
that I should never let him out of my

THE WAITING OF HELEN HORTON

349

sight again. It was lucky I followed
so soon."

She stopped breathless. Out of her
husband's face all the tender lines had
faded. He was again an ungracious,
senile invalid.

"Go away," he snarled.

Mary helped Susan to wrap him up.
He was whimpering softly like a badly
treated animal.

She watched them go across the
moon-lighted lawn, the old man's fig-

ure drooping beside the erect one of
his wife, then she went in and shut
the door.

The shadows gathered deep around
her, the fire died down, and Demos
cuddled into her lap for warmth and
sung himself to sleep. The old clock
chimed out the late hour, but the sound
fell on the unheeding ears of the old
woman who still heard the "Mary,
Mary," of the man he might have
been.

The Waiting of Helen Horton

By Mabel A. Rundell

BUSINESS had called me
East and on my return
journey to the western
state of- my adoption, the
desire came to me, as indeed it often
had before, to take the little branch
railroad that led to Norris and visit
the little town among the hills which,
had been my birthplace and which I
had not seen for twenty years.

This time I carried out my inten-
tion, and the following evening found
me smoking my after-dinner cigar
with a genial doctor of the place,
who had done me many a kindness
in my rather friendless youth; and
who, greatly to my surprise, had not
only recognized me, but had been
undisguisedly glad to see me, and
had carried me off, from my aimless
wandering down the straggling main
street, to his own snug little domain,
where his trim, bright-eyed wife had

made me as welcome and comfortable
as only a kind-hearted woman can.
They seemed really delighted to have
this slight break in the rather hum-
drum routine of their existence, and
I found the quiet atmosphere so rest-
ful to nerves jaded by business that I
gladly lingered.

As we sat and talked, in the cool-
ness of the evening, on the broad,
green lawn, I was really surprised to
find how many I recalled of the ac-
quaintances of my boyhood, and how
much Dr. Clayburn could tell me
about them. The physician in a
small town, if he be of the right
stamp, comes very near to the lives of
the people, and I listened to many
curious bits of history as the doctor
delved in the memories of years of
practice.

During a pause in our conversation,
the figure of a woman passing in the

350

THE WAITING OF HELEN HORTON

street caught my eye. She moved
erect and swiftly, with a sure step,
and though she was dressed most un-
obtrusively in some dark material,
there was that about her that would
have attracted attention anywhere.
Her face was colorless and very calm,
yet the feeling seized me at once that
the placid exterior covered a smoul-
dering fire.. It was the look of the
ascetic and something more. I have
seen it occasionally in the eyes of a
nun.

"Who is it?" I said in a low tone
to Dr. Clayburn.

He followed my glance and an-
swered, "Helen Horton. Don't you
remember her? Old Judge Horton's
daughter. You lived not far from
their big white house on the hill ; it
was the only show place in the
town."

"What! That Helen Horton?"
said I. "Why, as I remember her, she
was as frail and irresponsible as a
little windflower, and this woman is
marble and steel."

"Nevertheless that is Helen Hor-
ton," replied Dr. Clayburn. "It is
rather an unusual thing, the change
in her, even among the odd things of
a doctor's experience."

His voice was low, and he sat for
some time reminiscently puffing his
cigar and gazing into the soft, damp
shadows that were gathering under
the trees; then he resumed:

"I knew all about Helen Horton,
from her listless, characterless child-
hood. I was always treating her for
some little ailment, and never ac-
complishing anything to my satisfac-
tion ; there seemed never anything to
build on, no constitution, no vital
force. All her desires were gratified,

and she had not many. To all intents
and purposes, she was an only child ;
the other child, a son, whom you do
not probably remember, was a great,
strong, rollicking fellow, as different
from Helen as can well be imagined.
He was much the older and went to
Annapolis and into the navy while
Helen was yet a little thing.

"When the girl was twenty she
manifested her first human interest by
falling in love, not very violently to
be sure, but she became engaged.
The man was really not worthy of
her, but the old Judge and his wife
could never deny her anything and
were really pleased to see her at last
more like a normal girl.

"But it did not last long. The
man's innate coarseness, revealed on
closer acquaintance, repelled her
delicate, shrinking nature, and she
grew indifferent to him. It was
then I was first seriously alarmed
about her. She seemed to lose even
her usual slight interest in life and I
exhausted all my arts trying to
awaken some response in that nerve-
less girl.

"Just at this time, while Helen grew
neither better nor worse, her mother
was seized with typhoid fever, and 1
sent to New York for a nurse. Her
name was Octave Masterson, and it
suited her well. She was rather plain
in appearance, but a woman of un-
usual magnetism ; young, clever,
strong, cheerful, with a low, merry
laugh, and pulsing with life to the
ends of her cool, steady fingers.
Helen Horton turned to her at once,
as a little, sickly plant turns to the
sun ; and, rather to my astonishment,
Miss Masterson seemed greatly at-
tracted to the girl. I suppose Helen's

THE WAITING OF HELEN HORTON

351

helplessness appealed to her strength,
and perhaps with her ready sympathy
shd detected in the frail little soul
depths the rest of us had never dis-
covered. The friendship between
them grew fast and firm, and Helen
began to gain strength and animated
ways, quite unknown to her formerly.

"When Mrs. Horton recovered, I
advised them to have Miss Master-
son take Helen to California. I
thought the change of scene and
climate, and more than all Miss
Masterson's care, might work won-
ders. The Hortons would have
trusted her to no one else, but Helen,
rather to my astonishment, was all
eagerness to go, and they finally con-
sented.

"The two were gone six months.
We had not expected them to stay so
long, but Helen was so delighted with
everything, and her letters were filled
with such glowing accounts of the
beauties of the country, of her own
improving health, and of Miss Master-
son's untiring care and devotion, that
the father and mother had not the
heart to call her home.

"But at last she wrote they were
coming, and the day after their ar-
rival they came up to my office to see
me. I had expected great improve-
ment, but I was simply astounded at
the transformation that had taken
place in Helen. She was rosy, glow-
ing, with an effervescent vitality and
charm I had never dreamed her
capable of. She had a hundred ques-
tions to ask and as many things to
tell me of their travels, and in every-
thing she appealed to Miss Master-
son. Out of her own abounding life,
Octave Masterson seemed to have in-
fused strength and spirit into this

frail girl, who hung on her ever>
word and look. with a beautiful and
yet pathetic appeal. After they left
the office, I sat a long time ponder-
ing over the unusual sympathy be-
tween them, and wondering what the
outcome of the friendship would be.

"In the Norris Hospital at this
time the place of matron was left
vacant, and on my recommendation,
Miss Masterson was appointed to the
position. Nothing could have ex-
ceeded Helen's joy in hearing of it.
Much of her time after that was spent
in the matron's private rooms, and
during Miss Masterson's free hours
she was at Judge Horton's, while her
short vacations they spent at the sea-
shore or in the mountains together.

"All Helen's latent possibilities
seemed brought out by this com-
panionship. As quite a child she had
tried to play the violin, and in her
usual half-hearted way had never
made much progress ; but Miss
Masterson was passionately fond of
music, with the true artist's tempera-
ment, and her inspiration communi-
cated itself to Helen. She had les-
sons while she was away and they
' played together, Miss Masterson
the piano. I heard them one night
and never forgot it ; there was some-
thing strange, almost eerie, in Helen
Horton's playing. It was not espe-
cially brilliant in technique, to be
sure, nor even correct, but it was the
voice of a human soul. Listening,
one could fancy she was drawing the
bow across her heartstrings.

"And so it went on for several
years, — a perfect companionship be-
tween two human beings: Miss
Masterson happy and content, Helen,
vibrating, radiant. And then a man

352

THE WAITING OF HELEN HORTON

stepped in, and in a few short weeks
marred two lives.

"He was a clever enough fellow and
handsome, though I always thought
him rather a weak nature. He came
as house physician to the hospital, and
his admiration for Miss Masterson
was soon apparent. She was seem-
ingly unconscious or indifferent for
a time, but no woman finds it easy to
withstand a man's love, and her in-
terest grew ; while poor Helen looked
on in unbelieving wronder, that soon
changed to desperate pain. That she
could be obliged to share Octave's
love with any one had never occurred
to her, and there must have been
some stormy scenes between the two ;
for more than once I was called to
Judge Horton's to find Helen half
lifeless among her pillows, with what
seemed to be a sharp heart attack, and
Miss Masterson bending over her, —
white, silent, remorseful.

"But fate was stronger than Helen
Horton's love, and Octave Masterson
gave up the struggle. In a few months
she was married and went with her
husband to a western city, and there
came over the face of her friend the
look you saw to-night. I thought she
would not bear it long, but she said
to me once, as she rallied from a sink-
ing spell, "If I live, she will need
me, — some time."

"That is ten years ago and she has
changed but little. Her father and
mother died not long after, and she
looked about for something to fill her
empty life. She turned the big, old
house into a 'Foundlings' Home/
The grounds are full of the happy
play of tiny children, sent out from
New York. She goes among them,
always tender, always busy, and they

cling about her and worship her as a
saint, though they rarely see her
smile.

"Such a woman as Helen Horton
could not of course always pass un-
sought. Rumor has it that more than
one wooer has gone up the flower
bordered walks to her door, but
whatever she says to them they have
kept their own counsel, and no one is
the wiser.

"I see a great deal of her through
tne babies, as she calls me to attend
all their ailments, but she never al-
ludes to Miss Masterson, and whether
she hears from her or not I do not
know. Others have told me that her
husband is dissipated, that her life has
been a disappointment, and it has
taken all her strength and courage to
keep them from actual want. Mean-
while Helen Horton is waiting."

We were silent for a time ; our
cigars had gone out; then I said:
"Yes, and her face is the face of a
woman who knows how to wait,
— even into eternity."

The next morning, as I lay dream-
ing in the shadow of one of the great
elms, the doctor came to me with a
look of trouble in his eyes. "I have
been out to the 'Foundlings' Home,' "
he said, speaking slowly. . "Helen
had a letter this morning from Octave
Masterson. She writes that her hus-
band is dead, that she is coming back,
and that with the little foundlings
she and Helen will take up their old
life together."

"And Helen Horton's waiting is
ended," I said.

"No," he answered, "she is waiting
still, — in eternity. She dropped down
without a sigh, with the letter in her
hand, and her face is transfigured."

Daniel Vose (Suffolk Resolve) House. Milton Lower Mills

The Suffolk Resolves

By M. P. Webster

ion in

f"~"*^"^HE powerful and far-reach-
ing influence of the New
i. England town meeting finds
its most important illustra-
the famous paper known as
he Suffolk Resolves. The story of
vhich is that of the towns of Suffolk
Tounty, in 1774, and especially of Bos-
on, whose struggles and sufferings
iad enlisted the sympathy not only of
he Province of Massachusetts Bay,
>ut of the whole continent, from Que-
bec to South Carolina, and even of
nany people in England. While the
yranny of King and Parliament was

felt throughout the colonies, Boston,
then a little town of sixteen thousand
inhabitants, had made the most deter-
mined and spirited resistance, and had
openly defied the power of the English
government. Accordingly Boston and
the Province of Massachusetts Bay
were singled out for punishment. The
rule over them became more and
more stringent, and in 1768 troops
were sent to enforce their obedience,
for George the Third and his minis-
ters were determined to crush this
spirit of revolt.

Realizing the importance of the

353

354

THE SUFFOLK RESOLVES

crisis and that on their conduct de-
pended the fate of the entire country,
the people of Boston saw clearly that
their only hope for the future lay in
the united action, not merely of the
different towns and counties of the
province, but of the several English
colonies. At a town meeting, held
November 2, 1772, Samuel Adams
proposed that a committee of corre-
spondence should be appointed to pre-
pare a statement of the rights of the
colonists and of the infringements of
those rights, and send them to the
other towns, accompanied by a letter
"requesting a free communication of
their sentiments on this subject."
Governor Hutchinson wrote to Lord
Dartmouth of this "foolish scheme,"
as he called it, and even some of the
friends of Adams laughed at it. But
three years later John Adams wrote:
"When a certain masterly statesman
invented a committee of correspond-
ence in Boston, did not every colony,
nay, every county, city, hundred and
town upon the whole continent, adopt
the measure, I had almost said as if it
had been a revelation from above, as
the happiest means of cementing the
union and acting in concert?'' Soon
the province was organized, and with-
in four months the Virginia Legisla-
ture proposed a system of correspond-
ence between the colonies, and thus
united them into a confederation. In
May, 1774, the Sons of Liberty of New
York asked Massachusetts to name
the time and place for a general Con-
tinental Congress, and on June 17, just
a year before the battle of Bunker Hill,
the Massachusetts Legislature, behind
locked doors and while the governor's
secretary sought in vain to enter with
a proclamation dissolving the assem-

bly, under the intrepid leadership of
Samuel Adams, chose their delegates
and appointed the first meeting of the
Continental Congress at Philadelphia
on September 1. It actually met on
the 5th, four days before the passing »
of the Suffolk Resolves.

Meantime the local affairs of Bos-
ton and the Province of Massachusetts
Bay had gone from bad to worse.
Four acts had been passed by Parlia-
ment which reduced the colony almost
to a condition of slavery. These were
the Port Bill, by which the port of
Boston was blockaded after the first
of June ; the Regulating Act, by which
the executive power, including the
courts of justice, was concentrated in
the hands of the governor; the so-
called "Murder Act," by which magis-
trates, revenue officers or soldiers, in-
dicted for murder or other capital of-
fence in Massachusetts, were to be
transferred for trial to Nova Scotia
or Great Britain ; and a bill legalizing
the quartering of troops in Boston. A
fifth act established the Roman Cath-
olic religion and French laws in Cana-
da and extended the Province of
Quebec as far as the Ohio and Missis-
sippi ; a measure much opposed in New
England because of the influence of
the Roman Catholic religion in politi-
cal matters. These acts so roused the
people that they could with difficulty
be restrained by their leaders, who felt
that while the acts should be resisted
with firm determination, the country
was not yet ready to resort to arms
and that a premature conflict could re-
sult only in disaster and defeat.

Boston showed its characteristic en-
ergy. The Port Bill was read at a
town meeting held on May 13, 1774*
three days after its receipt, and the

Samuel Adams

records show that a committee was
appointed to consider "what measures
are proper to take upon the present
exigency." At an adjourned meeting,
held the same afternoon, it was voted
that a "Circular Letter" should be
written to the several towns of this
province and to the several colonies
and that "messengers should be dis-

patched with all possible speed," and
we learn later that "Mr. Reviere"
started on this errand the very next
day. It was also voted at the same
meeting "that it is the Opinion of this
Town, that if the other Colonies come
into a joint Resolution, to stop all Im-
portations from Great Britain & Ex-
portation to Great Britain, & every

355

356

THE SUFFOLK RESOLVES

part of the West Indies, till the Act
for Blocking up this Harbor be re-
pealed, the same will prove the Salva-
tion of North America & her liberties.
On the other Hand, if they continue
their Exports & Imports, there is high
Reason to fear, that Fraud, Power, &
the most Odious Oppression, will rise
triumphant over Right, Justice, Social
Happiness, & Freedom — And more-
over, that this vote be forthwith trans-
mitted by the Moderator to all our Sis-
ter Colonies in the Name & Behalf of
this Town." At the town meeting of
May 30 it was voted "That the Com-
ittee ... be desired to prepare a
Paper, to be carried to each Family
in the Town, the Report of which to
be, not to purchase any Articles of
British Manufactures, that can be ob-
tained among Ourselves, & that they
will purchase Nothing of, but totally
desert those who shall Counter-work
the Salutary Measures of the Town.

"Voted, that the Comittee of Corre-
spondence be & hereby are directed,
to communicate the Non Consumption
Agreement aforesaid to the other
Towns in the Province."

This paper, which was known as the
Solemn League and Covenant, caused
great division of opinion ; for many
felt that the committee had exceeded
their authority. On June 17, while
the Legislature were choosing repre-
sentatives to the Continental Congress,
a town meeting was held, of which
John Rowe, a Boston merchant, says
in his diary: "A generall town-meet-
ing this fore-noon — they chose mee
Moderator. I was much engaged &
therefore did not accept." (An un-
usual proceeding in so public spirited
a man.) "The People at present seem
very averse to Accommodate matters.

I think they will Repent of this Be-
havior Sooner or Later." On June
27 he writes : "Town Meeting the Hall
so full they adjourned to the Old
South Meeting house the Debates were
for and against the Committee of Cor-
respondence very warm on both sides
it Lasted all Day and adjourned till to-
morrow 10 of Clock." On June 28
he writes : "The Town met again at
the Old South Meeting. The Debates
very warm on both sides. I think
. . . the Committee are wrong in the
Matter. The Merchants have taken
up Against them they have in my
Opinion exceeded their Power & the
Motion was put that they should be
dismissed the Gentlemen that made &
supported this Motion could not obtain
their Vote the Majority were Four to
One Against them this affair will
cause Much Evill one against the
other. I wish for Peace in this Town,
I fear the Consequences."

No wonder the Boston merchants
were anxious ; for the condition of the
town, whose harbor was now in the
possession of a fleet of war ships, was
indeed pitiable. Bancroft says : "Not
a scow could be manned by oars to
bring an ox or a sheep or a bundle of
hay from the islands. All water car-
riage from pier to pier, though but of
lumber, or bricks, or lime, was strictly
forbidden. The boats between Boston
and Charlestown could not ferry a
parcel of goods across Charles River,
the fishermen of Marblehead, 'sending
dried fish to the poor of Boston,' were
obliged to transport their offering in
wagons by a circuit of thirty miles."
The town was full of British soldiers.
Business was paralyzed. A letter
written at this time says : "When I se-
riously reflect on the unhappy situation

From a painting by Gilbert Stuart

John Adams

357

358

THE SUFFOLK RESOLVES

we are in, I can't but be uneasy lest ye
trade of the town should never be re-
instated again. . . . You can have no
just conception how sensibly I am af-
fected in my business. . . . Such are
the inevitable consequences resulting
from a stoppage of trade ; for if you
consider the branch of the distillery of
rum alone, at the smallest computation,
is allow'd to be a loss of six thousand
pounds Lawful money, a week to the
town, as the expense attending the
transportation of molasses 28 or 30
miles by land, and the rum when made
the same distance (to be ship'd for
foreign markets) is equal to a prohibi-
tion— that the manufacturers of that
article in Mistick, Watertown, Salem.
Haverhill and Newbury engross the
whole of the trade, and it's a chance
(after being long used to those chan-
nels for a supply) whether' it will ever
revert to us again." (Andrews,
August 20, 1774.)

In this time of need the sympathy of
the entire country went out toward
Boston. "Gifts were offered from far
and near. South Carolina sent two
hundred barrels of rice and promised
to make the gift a thousand. Wash-
ington headed a subscription paper in
Fairfax County, Virginia, with fifty
pounds ; Wilmington, North Carolina,
raised two thousand pounds currency
in a few days ; flour, cattle, sheep, fish,
came from New England towns ; Que-
bec sent over a thousand bushels of
wheat ; and Augusta County, Virginia,
offered one hundred and thirty-seven
barrels of flour." (Gilman's "Story
of Boston.")

"Lord North had no expectation
that we should be thus sustained," said
Samuel Adams ; "he trusted that Bos-
ton would be left to fall alone." But

instead, the Boston Port Bill had pre-
cisely the opposite effect. It was this
measure that stirred New York to pro-
pose the Continental Congress. Ban-
croft says: "The port act had been re-
ceived on the tenth of May; and in
three weeks . . . the Continent, as
'one great Commonwealth,' made the
cause of Boston its own."

But it was one thing for the other
colonies to send assurances of sympa-
thy and gifts of money and provisions
to write in indignation that they should
not pay for an ounce of the detested
tea ; to toll the bells in Philadelphia
when the Port Bill went into opera-
tion ; or to observe the day in Virginia
with fasting and prayer ; it was quite a
different thing and a far more serious
matter for them to stand shoulder to
shoulder with Massachusetts in oppos-
ing the Regulating Act, which utterly
annulled her charter and established a
new form of government for the prov-
ince. The other colonies had been
moulded by influences and traditions
which were very different from those
of Massachusetts. Would it be pos-
sible to reconcile these differences; to
unite all the colonies in a common
cause; to smooth away jealousies; to
establish mutual understanding and
confidence? The Massachusetts dele-
gates had a difficult task before them.
They were first of all to learn the char-
acter and disposition of the other dele-
gates ; then they were to place the case
of Massachusetts before them so clear-
ly that it could not fail to be under-
stood ; and finally, they were to secure
that substantial cooperation without
which the brave struggle of Boston
would have been in vain.

And who were these four delegates
upon whom the fate of the state and

THE SUFFOLK RESOLVES

359

At 38

of the nation depended? First and
foremost was Samuel Adams, at this
time fifty-two years of age; Thomas
Cushing, the speaker of the Massachu-
setts House of Representatives, a man
of great influence, moderate and con-
ciliatory, forty-nine years of age;
Robert Treat Paine of Taunton, a law-
yer, and a man of forty-three, noted
for his scholarship, ability and wit ;
and another lawyer, John Adams, then
thirty-eight years of age, and so the
youngest of the group. The last two
had served four years before as prose-
cutor and defender in the trial of the
soldiers who took part in the Boston
massacre.

Behind these delegates were the peo-
ple of Massachusetts, eagerly awaiting
the decision of Congress and ready to
do all they could to bring about the
wished-for result. Bancroft tells us

that before leaving for Philadelphia,
on August 10, Samuel Adams had con-
certed the measures by which Suffolk
County would be best able to bring
the wrongs of the town and the prov-
ince before the general Congress ;
and he left the direction with Joseph
Warren, who was to send a memorial
of the result to Philadelphia. Warren
wrote to him on the 15th that dele-
gates had been chosen for the first
meeting of the convention, and again
on the 2 1 st, saying, "I shall take
care to follow your advice respect-
ing the county meeting, which, depend
upon it, will have very important con-
sequences. The spirits of our friends
rise every day."

Meantime the other counties had' not
been idle. Berkshire had met long
before, on July 6, at Stockbridge;
Worcester on August 9 ; Middlesex on

Robert Treat Paine

Doty's Tavern:

August 30; and Essex, Cumberland,
Hampshire, Plymouth and Bristol
during September. Reports of these
conventions will be found in the Jour-
nals of the Provincial Congress of
Massachusetts. They all passed reso-
lutions, which agree, first, in declaring
their allegiance to King George the
Third; second, in firmly opposing the
acts of Parliament in which their char-
ter rights are violated. The action of
the Worcester convention was espe-
cially vigorous. On August 31 they
passed resolutions calling the people
together to prevent the sitting of the
court on September 6, in obedience to
which about six thousand assembled in
military order, and "Having been
formed in two lines, the royalist jus-
tices and officers were compelled to
pass through the ranks, pausing at in-
tervals to read their declarations of
submission to the public will."

In Suffolk County the patriots had
360

held their first meeting on August 16,
at Doty's tavern, in what was then;
Stoughton, now Canton. This old
house, which was standing until 1888,
was on the Canton road, very near
Blue Hill. It had been chosen by the
advice of Samuel Adams, who "de-
sired that some inland town should be
selected, where the Congress might
meet, free from interference." "Early
in the forenoon the delegates began to
arrive. The members from the inland
towns came on horseback, while young
Dr. Warren, with his Boston friends,
drove up in a stylish berlin, drawn by
four horses, with a coachman in livery
on the box and footman on the rum-
ble. From old Stoughton came Par-
son Dunbar in gown and bands . . .
against the advice of many of his
friends, his relatives and (even) his
own son." (Huntoon, "History of
Canton.")

One of the Boston delegates to this

From a painting by Copley

361

362

THE SUFFOLK RESOLVES

convention, writing a few days later to
Samuel Adams, says : "We were per-
fectly unanimous and firm in the com-
mon cause. Colonel Thayer particu-
larly said, we must all appear undis-
guised upon one side or the other.
Good Parson Dunbar gave us the most
extraordinary liberty prayer that ever
I heard. He appeared to have the
most divine, if not prophetical, enthu-
siasm in favor of our rights, and stood
with us till eight o'clock at night."
The result of the meeting may be seen
in the following letter, which was sent
to the different towns :

"Roxbury, Aug. 1 8, 1774.
"Gentlemen: —

A meeting of gentlemen from every
town and district in the county of Suffolk,
except Weymouth, Cohasset, Needham,
and Chelsea, was held at Colonel Doty's,
in Stoughton, on Tuesday, the 16th cur-
rent, to consult what measures were
proper to be taken by the people of the
county at this most important and alarm-
ing crisis of our public affairs. But, as
several towns had not appointed dele-
gates for the special purposes of a county
meeting, they did not think proper to
proceed to complete the' business pro-
posed; but, in order that the proceedings
of such a meeting might be more valid
and authentic, they came unanimously
into the following resolve, and appointed
a Committee to transmit the same to
every town and district in the county ;
viz.:

"Whereas it appears to us that the Par-
liament of Great Britain, in violation of
the faith of the nation, have, in direct in-
fraction of the Charter of this Province,
contrary to Magna Charta, the Bill of
Rights, and the natural constitutional
claim of British subjects, by an Act
called the Boston Port Bill, a Bill for
amending the Charter of the Province,
and another for the Impartial Adminis-
tration of Justice, with all the parade and
ostentation of law and justice, attempted
to reduce this Colony to an unparalleled

state of slavery; and whereas the several
Colonies on this continent, being justly
and properly alarmed with this lawless
and tyrannical exertion of power, have
entered into combinations for our relief,
and published sundry resolutions, which
we are determined to abide by in support
of common interest: —

"We earnestly recommend to our breth-
ren of the several towns and districts in
this county to appoint members to attend
a county convention for Suffolk, at the
house of Mr. Woodward, innholder, in
Dedham, on Tuesday, the sixth day of
September next, at ten o'clock, before
noon, to deliberate and determine upon
all such matters as the distressed circum-
stance of this province may require. We
therefore transmit the same to you, to
be laid before your town, to act thereon
as you may think proper; and we beg
leave to add our request, that the gentle-
men who may be chosen by your town
would be very punctual to the hour pro-
posed for the convention, as it [is] very
probable the business will take up the
rest; of the day.

"We are your humble servant, by order
of Committee.

Nath. Patten.
To the Gentlemen Selectmen for the town of

Roxbury."

(Heath Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc.)

The house of Mr. Woodward, who
was a leading citizen of Dedham and
a delegate to the convention, stood di-
rectly opposite the present courthouse.
The meeting there on September 6 ap-
pointed a large committee, headed by
Warren, to draft a set of resolves, and
then adjourned to meet on September
9, at the house of Daniel Vose, in Mil-
ton, where the report of the committee
was read and the resolves unanimously
passed.

At this time the position of Milton
was a peculiar one. Although a little
town of about a thousand inhabitants,
less than one-fifth of its present popu-

THE SUFFOLK RESOLVES

363

lation, we must think of it then as a
much more important place, relatively
speaking, than it is now. It had been
a social centre ever since the days
of Governor Belcher and Pro-
vincial Secretary Foye, members
of whose families still remained
in the town. Just above the vil-
lage, at the summit of Milton Hill,
stood the house of Governor Hutchin-
son, with its beautiful English garden,
and not three months before the meet-
ing of the Suffolk Convention the
governor himself had walked through
the village street, past Daniel Vose's
house on his way to take ship
for England, shaking hands as he
went with his fellow-townsmen of
both political parties, with whom he
was personally a favorite, and bidding
them a cordial farewell.

Milton also counted among its citi-
zens other men of learning and refine-
ment. Among her delegates to the
convention there was at least one Har-
vard graduate, Dr. Samuel Gardner.
Another, David Rawson, was after-
wards representative of Milton in the
Provincial Congress. A more influen-
tial man than either of these had been
Oxenbridge Thacher, Jr., grandson of
Milton's first minister, whose death,
some nine years before, had been a
great loss to the patriots. A lawyer
of great ability and a member of that
noble band whose eloquence had "as-
sociated Faneuil Hall with the idea of
civil freedom," the government party
had "hated him worse than even Otis
or Samuel Adams and had feared him
more."

The intellectual status of Milton and
its patriotic spirit are well shown in
the resolutions passed at a town
meeting on the 25th of July, which

must have been held in response
to the receipt of the "Solemn League
and Covenant," sent out by the Bos-
ton Committee of Correspondence in
June. The record of this meeting Is
as follows :

"At a town-meeting held by adjourn-
ment from the 27th day of June 1774 to
the 25th of the next July at 4 of the Clock
afternoon.

"ist the Committee appointed at the last
Town Meeting to consider and determine
upon some proper measure for this Town
to come into Respecting the situation of
publick affairs Reported as follows, viz.

"We the Inhabitants of Milton acknowl-
edge George the third to be our rightful
Monarch — we feelingly Declare ourselves
to be' his true and loyal 'Subjects — and
next to the Horrors of Slavery we detest
the thought of being seperated from our
Parent State. We have been wont to
glory in our connexion with our Mother
Country — our hearts have been ever
warm with filial affection and we are

364

THE SUFFOLK RESOLVES

ready and willing on all proper Occasions
to spend our Blood & Treasure in de-
fence of his Majesties Crown & Dignity —
and we are Equally ready and willing to
spend our ALL in defending our own
religious and civil Liberties when invaded
by any humane Power. We have been
taught from our Mothers Breasts, that
our Freedom is a Jewel of Inestimable
Value, that 'one day one hour of Virtuous
Liberty, is worth a whole Eternity of
Bondage' that 'Free Government sup-
poses that the conduct of affairs may be
inquired into & spoken of with Freedom
— That opposition in a loyal Regular way
to measures which a person thinks wrong,
cannot but be' allowed in a free Govern-
ment. For 'it is in itself Just, and also
keeps up the spirit of Liberty,' ac-
cordingly We claim a right, 'especially in
times of Publick Trial' freely to speak
against & zealously to oppose any
Measures by whomsoever adopted which
are aimed at the Destruction of our Con-
stitutional Liberties, zvhich alter our good
and ancient Usages — and zvhich are de-
signed to make us Slaves, for such meas-
ures are base & wicked, and ought to be
resisted,' the Destruction of a free Con-
stitution of Government, though men see
or fancy many defects in it, and whatever
they design or pretend, ought not to be
thought of without Horror, for the de-
sign is in itself unjust since it is roman-
tick to suppose it legal; it cannot be pros-
ecuted without the most wicked means;
nor accomplished but with the present
ruine of Liberty, religious as well as civil
— and whoever will thoroughly consider,
in what Degree Mankind are really in-
fluenced by reason & in what Degree by
custom, may be convinced, that the state
of human Affairs does not even admit an
equivolent for the mischief of setting
things afloat, and the dangers of parting
with those Securities of Liberty, which
arise from regulation of long prescription
and ancient Usage. 'But in defiance of
the Laws of God and society, in direct
Violation of Sacred Compact, the British
Parliament have assumed a Power to
alter and destroy our free Constitution of
Civil Government and to introduce any
Species of oppression whatever. Now

that such pretended Omnipotency ought
to be opposed when assumed by any set
of men unless they have infinite Wisdom
to direct, and inftnite Goodness to stimu-
late them to a righteous conduct, is a
dictate of common Sense, and whether
these are predicable of the present British
Parliament let Gods inteligent Creation
Judge.'

"And being clearly of opinion that to
withstand such assumed Power, and to
oppose in a regular way; the Oppressive
Measures which are carrying into Execu-
tion by such Power is a Duty we owe to
God, to ourselves, and to unborn Millions,
we therefore RESOLVE that we will
unite with our Brethren THE SONS OF
FREEDOM IN AMERICA in any
proper Measures, that may be adopted to
defeat the late cruel & oppressive Acts of
the British Parliament respecting Amer-
ica, and this Distressed Province in par-
ticular,— to extirpate the Idea of Tyraniz-
ing, which is so fondly fostered in the
Bosoms of those in Power — and to secure
to ourselves and to Posterity our invalu-
able Rights & Privileges.

"A Non-Consumption Agreement we
think the most rational as it is the most
Peaceful, But as Committees from the
several Colonies on this Continent are
soon to meet and to deliberate & deter-
mine upon some wise & proper Measures
for the recovery & Establishment of
American Liberties — and as we doubt
not but the WISDOM OF AMERICA
will fix upon such righteous measures as
will Eventually prove not only the Salva-
tion of this Extensive Continent but also
the Permanentest Dignity of Great
Britain, we therefore RESOLVE to
commit our cause under God, to them,
and to adopt such Righteous Measures
as shall be by them recommended to
the Colonies as necessary to regain &
secure our free Constitution of Govern-
ment.

"We wish them a seasonable & Joyful
Meeting — and a happy union of sentiment
— and may God Almighty direct and pro-
tect them. We return our sincere thanks
to the Town of Boston for their inde-
fatigable & noble Exertions in the cause
of Freedom — and beg them still to watch

THE SUFFOLK RESOLVES

365

upon the walls of our Jerusalem and not
to be weary in well doing."

"David Rawson
Ralph Houghton

Amariah Blake
Oliver Vose
Joseph Clap
Samuel Henshaw, Jun1'
Samuel Gardner

Committee".
"Milton 25 July 1774."

(Milton town records.)

Milton counted among its citizens
not only social and intellectual, but
business leaders as well. As early as
1633 the first gristmill in the country
had been built on the site now occu-
pied by one of the Baker chocolate
mills ; the chocolate business itself was
established in 1765; the Milton paper
mills, the first in the country, were in
1769 sending as far as Portsmouth for
rags ; the slitting mill at Mattapan was
the first in the province. Mr. James
Boice and Captain Daniel Vose, both af-
terwards representatives of Milton in
the Provincial Congress, were well-
known business men.

At that time Captain Vose's home
stood farther up the street than it does
now, being afterwards removed to its
present location and enlarged. The
beautiful elms in front of it were
planted in 1784 by Captain Vose's son-
in-law, Dr. Amos Holbrook. It was
most conveniently situated for a coun-
ty convention, being near the junction
of the post road from Boston to
Plymouth and the "great road to
Taunton."

At the meeting there on September
9 nineteen towns and districts were
represented, most of them appointing
five delegates ; some, only one or two ;
some as many as seven — all leading
men, as befitted the occasion. Manv

of their names are found among the
minutemen who hurried to Lexington
on the 19th of April ; one, Isaac
Gardner of Brookline, the first Har-
vard graduate to be killed in the Revo-
lution, fell on that day; and another,
Captain Eleazer Kingsbury of Need-
ham, was wounded. The moderator
was Deacon Joseph Palmer of German-

'SsmSSUB^Um

From photo by Walter Stimson

Spot where Captain Isaac Gardner fell,

North Ave., near Spruce St.,

Cambridge

366

THE SUFFOLK RESOLVES

town, in Braintree, who was after-
wards made a brigadier general; the
clerk was Major William Thompson,
a well-known patriot from Brookline.
From Stoughton came Thomas Crane,
a native of Milton, who, with Daniel
Vose, was to furnish most of the pow-
der used by the province during the
first three years of the war, manufac-
turing it in Stoughton, which then
included Canton, on nearly the same
site as that occupied by the Revere
Copper Company, whose business,
started by Paul Revere, is still carried
on by his descendants. From Roxbury
came William Heath, afterwards ma-
jor general in the Continental army.
From Boston came, alas, the traitor,
Dr. Benjamin Church. From Boston,
too, came the leader, Joseph Warren,
chairman of the committee which had
drafted the resolves, who, although
only thirty-three years of age, was
celebrated as a physician, a writer and
an orator; was a grand master in the
Masonic fraternity, and soon to be
made a major general in the army, and
whose death at Bunker Hill left or-
phan four little children, already
motherless, and deprived his country
of one of her greatest and noblest
men.

Few details of the convention have
come down to us. We know that the
9th of September was a beautiful
day, that the delegates must have been
in good spirits over the news from
Worcester; we may guess that toasts
were drunk to the brave men there
and in the Continental Congress at
Philadelphia; we are shown the door-
way in which Warren stood as he
read the resolves, paragraph by para-
graph, to be considered and voted upon
by the assembled delegates. We know,

too, that not a man gave way to fear,
and that every vote of the convention
was a unanimous one; and we know
that the resolves were sent to Phila-
delphia by Paul Revere.

Nearly a month had now passed
since the delegates to the Continental
Congress had set out on August 10, "in
a coach and four, preceded by two
white servants, well mounted and
arm'd, with four blacks behind in liv-
ery, two on horseback and two foot-
men." (Andrews.) A large number
of gentlemen had escorted them as far
as Coolidge's, in Watertown, where
an entertainment had been prepared.
As they proceeded on their way they
had everywhere been received with
demonstrations of sympathy and re-
spect. Seven miles out of New Haven
they were met by a great number of
carriages and horsemen, and John
Adams writes in his diary:

"As we came into the town, all the
bells in town were set to ringing,
and the people, men women and chil-
dren, we're crowding at the doors and
windows, as if it was to see a coronation.
At nine o'clock the cannon were fired,
about a dozen guns, I think. ... No
Governor of a Province, nor General of
an army, was ever treated with so much
ceremony and assiduity as we have been
throughout . . . Connecticut;" and he
writes to his wife from Philadelphia: "I
have not time nor language to express
the hospitality and civility, the studied
and expensive respect, with which we
have been treated in every step of our
progress." And again, a little later, "I
shall be killed with kindness in this place.
We go to Congress at nine, and there we
stay, most earnestly engaged in debates
upon the most abstruse mysteries of
state, until three in the afternoon; then we
adjourn, and go to dine with some of the
nobles of Pennsylvania at four o'clock,
and feast upon ten thousand delicacies,

Interior Daniel Vose (Suffolk Resolve) House

and sit drinking Madeira, Claret, and
Burgundy, till six or seven, and then go
home fatigued to death with business,
company and care. Yet I hold out sur-
prisingly." Later, he says: "There Is a
great spirit ini the Congress. But our
people must be peaceable. Let them ex-
ercise every day in the week if they will,
the more the better. . . . But let them
avoid war if possible — if possible I say."
(Oct. 7.) In his next letter he gives us
the following glimpse of the Congress:
"This assembly is like no other that ever
existed. Every man in it is a great man,
an orator, a critic, a statesman; and
therefore every man upon every question
must show his oratory, his criticism and
his political abilites. The consequence of
this is that business is drawn and spun
out to an immeasurable length. I believe
if it was moved and seconded that we
should come to a resolution that three and
two make five, we should be entertained

with logic and rhetoric, law, history, poli-
tics, and mathematics, and then — we
should pass the resolution unanimously in
the affirmative."

Such was the assembly before whom
the four delegates were to state the
case of Massachusetts. Moreover,
they had to overcome a feeling of per-
sonal prejudice against themselves.
When within a few miles of Philadel-
phia, they were told by some of the
Sons of Liberty, who had come to
meet them, that letters had been writ-
ten to that city and to all the South by
some of the friends of government
in Boston, in which they were repre-
sented as four desperate adventurers.
According to these letters :

"Mr. Cushing was a harmless kind of

367

36S

THE SUFFOLK RESOLVES

man, but poor, and wholly dependent on
his popularity for his subsistence. Mr.
Samuel Adams was a very artful, design-
ing man, but desperately poor, and wholly
dependent on his popularity with the
lowest vulgar for his living. John Adams
and Mr. Paine were two young lawyers,
of no great talents, reputation, or weight,
who had no other means of raising them-
selves into consequence than by courting
popularity. We were all suspected of
having independence in view — an idea as
unpopular in Pennsylvania and in all the
Middle and Southern States as the Stamp
Act itself. 'Now,' said they, . . . 'you are
the representatives of the suffering State.
. . . You have been long persecuted — your
feelings have been hurt, your passions
excited; you are thought to be too warm,
too zealous, too sanguine. You must be
very cautious; you must not come forward
with any bold measures, you must not
pretend to take the lead. You know
Virginia is the most populous State in the
Union. They are very proud .of their
ancient dominion, they think they have
a right to take the lead, and the Southern
States and the Middle States, too, are
too much disposed to yield it to them.'

"This was plain dealing and . . . there
appeared so much wisdom and good
sense in it, that it made a deep impression
on my mind, and ... on all my col-
leagues.

"This conversation, and the principles,
facts, and motives, suggested in it, have
given a color, complexion, and character,
to the whole policy of the United States
from that day to this." (Mr. Adams is
writing in 1822.)

We cannot wonder at the estimate
in which Virginia was held when we
remember that among her delegates
were Peyton Randolph, president of
the Congress ; Patrick Henry, Richard
Henry Lee and George Washington.
But it was not possible for the Massa-
chusetts men to keep in the back-
ground. At the very first meeting it
was given to Samuel Adams to speak
the right word at the right time; a

word of inestimable weight in uniting
the colonies ; which showed at the very
outset the willingness of the Massa-
chusetts delegates to adopt the funda-
mental principle without which there
could have been no union, viz., a spirit
of mutual toleration which could over-
look minor differences of opinion in
recognition of the fact that in spite of
these differences they were all at heart
united in love to God and to their
country.

The incident is told as follows in a
letter written by John Adams to his
wife:

"When the Congress first met, Mr.
dishing made a motion that it should be
opened with prayer. It was opposed by
Mr. Jay, of New York, and Mr. Rutledge,
of South Carolina, because we were so
divided in religious sentiments, some
Episcopalians, some Quakers, some Ana-
baptists, some Presbyterians and some
Congregationalists, that we could not
join in the same act of worship. Mr.
Samuel Adams arose and said he was no
bigot, and could hear a prayer from a
gentleman of piety and virtue, who was at
the same time a friend to his country. He
was a stranger to Philadelphia, but had
heard that Mr. Duche deserved that
character, and therefore he moved that
Mr. Duche, an Episcopal clergyman,
might be desired to read prayers to the
Congress, to-morrow morning. The
motion was seconded and passed in the
affirmative. Mr. Randolph, our presi-
dent, waited on Mr. Duche, and received
for answer that if his health would permit
he certainly would. Accordingly, next
morning he appeared with his clerk and
in his pontificals, and read several
prayers in the established form; and their
read the Collect for the seventh day of
September, which was the thirty-fifth
Psalm. You must remember this was the
next morning after we heard the horrible
rumor of the cannonade of Boston.* I

*This was a story of bombardment arising out of exag-
gerated reports at the time the gunpowder was seized at
Charlestown.

THE SUFFOLK RESOLVES

369

never saw a greater effect upon an audi-
ence. It seemed as if Heaven had or-
dained that Psalm to be read on that
morning. After this, Mr. Duche, unex-
pected to everybody, struck out into an
extemporary prayer, which filled the
bosom of every man present. I must con-
fess I never heard a better prayer, or
one so well pronounced. Episcopalian as
he is, Dr. Cooper himself never prayed
with such fervor, such ardor, such earnest-
ness and pathos, and in language so ele-
gant and sublime — for America, for the
Congress, for the Province of Massa-
chusetts Bay, and especially the town of
Boston."

The first .business of the Congress
was to examine the credentials of the
delegates, pass resolutions regulating
their transactions and appoint two
committees, one "to state the rights of
the colonies in general," the infringe-
ments of these rights and the "means
most proper to be pursued" for their
restoration; the other to examine and
report upon the laws affecting the
trade and manufactures of the colo-
nies. Then, after thanking the Li-
brary Company of Philadelphia for
offering them the use of their books,
they adjourned from day to day await-
ing the reports of the committees.
On September 14 the delegates from
Massachusetts placed the resolves of
the county of Middlesex before the
Congress. They were read, but no
action was taken upon them, for Sam-
uel Adams and his colleagues were,
no doubt, waiting to hear from Boston
and from Suffolk County. Every one
is familiar with the famous ride of
Paul Revere on the 19th of April,
in 1775, but history has little to
say about the equally important one
which he took in September, 1774,
I when in one short week he carried the
Suffolk Resolves from Boston to Phil-

adelphia. On the 19th of September
Samuel Adams writes:

"Last Friday Mr. Revere brought us
the spirited and patriotic resolves of our
county of Suffolk. We laid them before
the' Congress. They were read with great
applause, and the enclosed resolutions
were unanimously passed, which give you
a faint idea of the spirit of the Congress.
I think I may assure you, that America
will make a point of supporting Boston
to the utmost." On Saturday, September
17, the day after the Resolves reached
Philadelphia, John Adams writes: "This
was one of the happiest days of my life.
In Congress we had generous, noble
sentiments, and manly eloquence. This
day convinced me that America will sup-
port the Massachusetts or perish with
her." And on the 18th, in a letter to his
wife, he says : "Two votes . . . were
passed yesterday, and ordered to be
printed. You will see them from every
quarter. These votes were passed in full
Congress with perfect unanimity. The
esteem, the affection, the admiration for
the people of Boston and the Massachu-
setts which were expressed yesterday, and
the fixed determination that they should
be supported, were enough to melt a
heart of stone. I saw the tears gush into
the eyes of the old, grave pacific Quakers of
Pennsylvania ... do entreat every
friend I have to write me. Every line
which comes from our friends is greedily
enquired after, and our letters have done
us vast service. Middlesex and Suffolk
have acquired unbounded honor here."

The votes which Adams mentions
are as follows:

"Resolved unanimously, That this as-
sembly deeply feels the suffering of their
country men in the Massachusetts Bay,
under the operation of the late unjust,
cruel, and oppressive acts of the British
Parliament— that they most thoroughly
approve the wisdom and fortitude with
which opposition to these wicked minis-
terial measures has hitherto been con-
ducted, and they earnestly recommend to
their brethren, a perseverance in the same

370

THE SUFFOLK RESOLVES

firm and temperate conduct as expressed
in the resolutions determined upon, at
a meeting of the delegates for the county
of Suffolk, on Tuesday the 6th instant,
trusting that the effect of the united
efforts of North- America in their behalf,
will carry such conviction to the British
nation, of the unwise, unjust and ruinous
policy of the present administration, as
quickly to introduce better men and
wiser measures.

"Resolved unanimously, That contribu-
tions from all the colonies for supplying
the necessities, and alleviating the dis-
tresses of our brethren in Boston, ought
to be continued, in such manner and so
long as their occasions may require."

On Saturday, October 8,

"The Congress resumed the consideration
of the letter from the Committee of Cor-
respondence in Boston and . . .

"Resolved, That this Congress approve
the opposition of the inhabitants of the
Massachusetts Bay, to the execution of
the late acts of Parliament; and if the
same shall be attempted to be carried into
execution by force, in such case, all
America ought to support them in their
opposition."

And two days later it was

"Resolved unanimously, That every per-
son and persons whomsoever, who shall
take, accept, or act under any commission
or authority, in anywise derived from the
act passed at the last session of parlia-
ment, changing the form of government,
and violating the charter of the province
of Massachusetts Bay, ought to be held
in detestation and abhorrence by all good
men, and considered as the wicked tools
of that despotism, which is preparing to
destroy those rights, which God, nature,
and compact, have given to America."

This action of the Continental Con-
gress produced a great effect both in
this country and in England. A
writer of the times says :

"The friends of America have the satis-
faction to learn that the Resolves of the
late Continental Congress respecting the

vote's of the County of Suffolk published ir
the English papers here not only surprised
but confounded the ministry, as by it theyi
perceive the Union of the Colonies to be
complete, and their present menaces only
mark their despair.

• "At a meeting of the Freeholders and
other Inhabitants of the Town of Boston
at Faneuil Hall . . . December 30th,
1774—

"Mr. Samuel Adams in the Chair. .
The following Vote expressive of the
Gratitude of the Town for the benevolent
Assistance' received from the other Col-
onies under our present Calamities, &
the kind Recommendation of the late re-
spectable Continental Congress for future i
Support — Passed Nem. Cont.

"Whereas the' Town of Boston is un-i
fortunately become the most striking
Monument of Ministerial Tyranny & Bar-!
barity, as is particularly exhibited in)
the sudden shutting up this Port thereby]
cruelly depriving the Inhabitants of this!
Metropolis of the Means they have hither-
to used to support their Families; And
whereas our Brethren of in the other Col-
onies, well knowing that we are suffering
in the common Cause of America & of
Mankind have', from a generous & Broth-
erly Disposition contributed largely
towards our Support in this Time of our
General Distress (without which many of
our worthy and virtuous Citizens must
have been in imminent Danger of perish-
ing with Cold & Hunger) — And whereas
the Honble Members of the Continental!
Congress have kindly recommended us to
our Sister Colonies, as worthy of farther
Support from them, while the Iron Hand
of unremitting Oppression lies heavy upon
us. Therefore' Votled, that this Town,,
truely sensible of the generous Assistance
they have received from their sympathiz-
ing Brethren, return them their warmest'
& most sincere Thanks for the same: And
they pray that GOD, whose beneficence
they so gloriously imitate, may bestow
upon them the Blessings he has promised
to all them, who feed the hungry & cloath
the naked: And the Thanks of this Town
are accordingly hereby given to our
benefactor aforementioned, & to the

THE SUFFOLK RESOLVES

371

Hon^16 Members of the Congress for
their Benevolence towards us, expressed
as aforesaid, which Support, if continued
cannot fail of animating us to remain sted-
fast in defending the Rights of America."

The delegates to the County
Convention were in most cases

chosen by special town meetings
called in response to the letter sent
out by order of the preliminary
meeting, August 16. It is distinctly
stated that every town and district
in the county was represented at
Milton.

LIST OF DELEGATES.

(♦Afterwards Representatives in the Provincial Congress.)

Bellingham.

♦Stephen Metcalf,
Committee of
Correspondence.

Boston.

♦Joseph Warren.
♦Benjamin Church.
♦John Pitts.
Benjamin Kent.
♦Oliver Wendell.

Braintree.

♦Joseph Palmer.
♦Ebenezer Thayer.
Thomas Penniman.

Brookline.

♦William Thompson.
♦Benjamin White.

Isaac Gardner.
♦John Goddard.

Thomas Aspinwall.

Chelsea.

Samuel Sprague.
Samuel Sargeant.
♦Samuel Watts.

Dedham.

William Avery.
Richard Woodward.
Nathaniel Sumner.
Daniel Gay.
Ralph Day.

Dorchester.

Samuel How.
♦Lemuel Robinson.
♦Ebenezer Withington.
♦James Robinson.

John Minott.

William Holden.

John Homans.

Medfield.

Simon Plimpton,
Eliakim Morse,
♦Seth Clark,
♦Daniel Perry,
♦Moses Bullen,

Committee of
Correspondence.

Medway.

Daniel Pond.
♦Jonathan Adams.
Elijah 'Clark.
Joshua Partridge.
Eleazar Adams, Jr.

Milton.

♦David Rawson,
William Taylor,
Samuel Gardner,
Amariah Blake,
Ralph Houghton,
Committee of
Correspondence.

Needham.
♦Eleazar Kingsbery.

Lemuel Pratt.
Jonathan Deming.
Samuel Daggett.
Caleb Kingsbery.

Roxbury.

Nathaniel Patten.
♦William Heath.
Nathaniel Felton.
Ebenezer Dorr.
David Weld.
Eben Whiting.
Jeremiah Parker.

Stoughton.

♦John Withington,
Theophilus Curtis,
John Kenney,
Josiah Pratt,
♦Thomas Crane,

Committee of
Correspondence.

Stoughtenham.

♦John Swift.
Eijah He'wins.

Walpole.

Nathaniel Guild.
♦Enoch Ellis.
Samuel Cheney.

Wrentham.

♦Jebez Fisher.
♦Lemuel Kollock.
Ebenezer Daggett.

372

SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES

The names of the delegates from
Weymouth, Hingham and Cohasset
are not specified on the town rec-
ords. These three towns were
probably represented by commit-
tees whose duties covered a more
general field of work.

On September 28, 1774, the town of
Weymouth

"Voted To axcept of the 19 Resolves
Drawed up by the County Committee & to
stand by them Resolves."

At Hingham

"the Committee appointed to meet the
Committees from the several Towns in the
County of Suffolk Reported to the
Town" on September 21 and the Resolves

were voted "to be agreeable to the
Town."

On October 7, Cohasset

"Voted to accept of the Report of the
Committee for the County of Suffolk."

It seems probable that Wey-
mouth may have been represented
by Nathaniel Bayley, Hingham by
Benjamin Lincoln and Cohasset by
Isaac Lincoln, all of whom were
later in the Provincial Congress.

The Suffolk Resolves are too long
for insertion here. They are given
in full in "Acts and Resolves of the
Continental Congress," in Teele's
"History of Milton" and in Frothing-
ham's "Life of Joseph Warren."

Schools and Colleges in Colonial

Times

By Homer J. Webster

WHEN we consider our vast
educational system of to-
day, with its excellent
free schools and en-
dowed colleges on every hand and its
universities so well equipped for ad-
vanced research, all opening their
wide doors of opportunity to Ameri-
can youth ; and when we consider
further that all this vast system from
its very inception has sprung up
within the short space of but two and
a half centuries, our admiration for
American educational zeal is pro-
found ; and when we remember also
the many difficulties — financial, physi-

cal, religious and political — which our
forefathers had to face in founding
this system, our admiration is in-
creased. Almost every American
schoolboy knows the date of the
founding of Harvard College, our first
institution of higher learning; but
how many of them remember with
equal pride the date of the origin of
our public school system? And yet
of the two, which is the more im-
portant conception? The one is the
students', the other is the people's
college. The one builds the super-
structure; the other lays the founda-
tion. The one opens its doors to the

IN COLONIAL TIMES

373

favored few; the other, to the less
fortunate many. The one is for a
class ; the other is for all.

The first feature of the colonial
schools which impresses one is that
they were mainly under the patronage
and control of the church instead of
the state. Massachusetts originated
the public school system by legisla-
tive enactment in 1647, and Connecti-
cut followed in 1650. The Massachu-
setts laws provided that every town
of fifty freeholders should maintain a
district school, and that every town
of one hundred freeholders should
maintain a grammar school, and the
Connecticut laws were similar. These
are the only examples of state con-
trol and uniform systems of schools
in colonial times. In all the other
colonies, each parish or settlement
had its own school and was a law
unto itself. The colonies in general
showed a disinclination, to say the
least, to state control of their schools
or to the establishment of uniform
systems. In Rhode Island the people
would tolerate no legislative inter-
ference with the education of their
children, which, like religion, was
considered strictly a parental and
individual duty. In Virginia the
words of Governor Berkeley have be-
come historic: "I thank God there are
no free schools or printing , presses
here, and I hope we shall not have
them these hundred years." It must
be remembered, however, that it was
against free schools only that he
spoke, for he favored private schools
and academies. His wish as to free
schools was gratified, for Virginia had
none till they were introduced
through the efforts of Jefferson over
a century later. In Pennsylvania,

also, although the Friends, Mora-
vians, Germans and others had suc-
cessful schools, there was no public
school system. A heterogeneous
population, and the idea that public
schools were a form of charity, pre-
vented their introduction. The
southern colonies had a few private
and parish schools, and the wealthy
families had their own tutors and sent
their children to New England or to
England for higher learning. It
should be noted that "public" and
"free" schools then were not such in
the sense in which those terms are
now used, but required the payment
of fees or rate-bills, at least from all
who could afford to pay.

That the colonial colleges also were
founded, governed and supported
mainly by church influences is ap-
parent from the most superficial in-
vestigation. Let us consider briefly
the first three colleges, Harvard, Wil-
liam and Mary and Yale. Ministers
led in founding them ; their courses
of study were calculated for the train-
ing of ministers ; ministers were their
chief administrators. There were
strong reasons for all this. The
ministers were the educated class.
The coming generation must have
men prepared to take their places.
The colonists had come to America
partly for freedom of worship and the
church must be maintained. It was
already organized and was prepared
to direct education. On the other
hand, the state was poorly organized
and besides, the idea of state control
of education was not yet generally
established. So that . while these
institutions did receive more or less
public support, the part of the state
was mainly that of handmaid to the

374

SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES

church. Concern for the religious
welfare of the colonists is a promi-
nent note in all the literature relating
to the beginnings of the early colleges.
Harvard was founded, "that the light
of learning might not go out, nor the
study of God's word perish," the
people "dreading to leave an illiterate
ministry to the churches when their
present ministers should lie in the
dust." Of its five hundred graduates
in the seventeenth century, fully one-
half, it is estimated, entered the
ministry. Yet that a liberal spirit
prevailed there is shown by the fact
that no religious test was required of
Harvard professors, and it was made
a welcome home for all denomina-
tions. In the founding of William and
Mary we find similar notes of re-
ligious concern. In 1660, the Virginia
Assembly asked for a royal endow-
ment of the college, "to the end that
the church of Virginia might be
furnished with a seminary for minis-
ters of the Gospel, that the youth
might be piously educated in good
letters and manners, and that the
Indians might be converted to the
Christian faith, to the glory of Al-
mighty God." About thirtyyears later,
the Rev. James Blair, first president
of William and Mary, when soliciting
Attorney-General Seymour for a
charter, urged that the Virginians
had souls to be saved and that the
institution was needed to prepare
young men for the ministry. "Souls !'■
cried Seymour. "Damn your souls!
make tobacco." Yet, despite the dis-
couraging reply, the college received
liberal royal patronage and was
favored in this respect above all
other colonial institutions. Upholding
the Church of England as it did, and

being a namesake of the king and
queen, this was but natural. It was
part of the original plan, running
back to 1619, that the college should
be a "seminary for the breeding of
good ministers." Governors and
"visitors" were required to be mem-
bers of the Church of England,
professors had to subscribe to the
thirty-nine articles, and students to
know the catechism. Yale was to be
named the "School of the Church"
and was to receive support from a
synod of the churches and an over-
sight "as far as should be necessary
to preserve orthodoxy in its govern-
ment." Then clergymen were chosen
as its trustees, and they required that
no instruction should be given in
any other system of divinity than
such as they should order, and that
students should recite daily and be
examined in the "Assembly's Cate-
chism," Ames's "Cases of Con-
science" and "Theological Theses.''
Yale was founded soon after the un-
successful attempt at Harvard to im-
pose a religious test, and partly at
least for the reason that "the college
at Cambridge was under the tutelage
of latitudinarians." It was not many
years till Rector Cutler and some of
the tutors were "excused from further
service" because they had gone over
to episcopacy, and this led to the in-
troduction of a religious test in Yale
for rector and tutors, 1722, which en-
dured for a century.

Thus it appears how ultimately the
lives of these early institutions were
connected with the life of the church.
Of the ten colleges which had been
founded by the year 1776, only one,
the University of Pennsylvania,
1749, was non-sectarian. But a

IN COLONIAL TIMES

375

marked broadening tendency was
constantly developing. Immediately
after the Revolution a number of
new colleges were founded, and by
1796, of the twenty-four then exist-
ing, eleven were non-sectarian.

As to the district schools in Massa-
chusetts and Connecticut, perhaps
their importance in this period was
due as much to the great new
principle of public instruction en-
forced by the state, which they
involved, as to the actual educational
work which they did. They were held
two months in the winter and two in
the summer, the winter term being-
only for boys. The masters of these
schools were usually experts only
with the rod. The slow progress
which must have been made in such
short and interrupted terms reminds
one of the problem of the frog which
ascends from the well by successive
leaps but slips back almost to its
former position before each new leap.
The subjects taught were reading,
writing, spelling and arithmetic, and
a1 very meagre amount of these.
Having such crude and rudimentary
work to do in the schoolroom, the
master did not have to burn the mid-
night oil to keep ahead of his pupils
and he was usually a jack-at-all-
trades. His extra duties must have
been, in many cases, a welcome diver-
sion from the monotony of the
schoolroom. We read of one in
New England in 1661, whose duties
were: "1. To act as court messen-
ger. 2. To serve summonses. 3. To
conduct certain ceremonial services
in the church. 4. To lead the Sunday
choir. 5. To ring the bell for -public
worship. 6. To dig graves. 7. To
take charge of the school. 8. To per-

form other occasional duties!" And
we learn that Adam Roelandsen, the
first schoolmaster of New York, be-
sides teaching the youth, also took
in washing.

The great work of preparing for
college was mainly done in the gram-
mar schools. Some of these became
historic. The earliest conspicuous
schools of this class were the Dutch
Reformed School of New York,
founded in 1633, and the Boston
Latin School, 1635. The former is
said to have been the first public free
school in the United States, and both
Of them are still continued. As early
as 1621 the Virginia colony had se-
cured an endowment for the Charles
City School, along with the projected
college of William and Mary, and
thus at this early date was begun the
movement which later resulted in the
establishment of the college and the
famous Hampton Institute of to-day.
But the Indian massacre in Virginia
in 1622 prevented for the time
the execution of the plans. These
three centres, however, having
pointed out the way, a number of
other schools were soon established
in the middle and New England
colonies. Famous among these were
Nathan Tisdale's Lebanon School,
which drew students from all the
colonies and the West Indies, the
Penn Charter School and the Rox-
bury Latin School. Of Roxbury,
Cotton Mather said: "It has afforded
more scholars, first for the college
and then for the public, than any town
of its bigness, or, if I mistake not, of
twice its bigness in all New England."
In the southern colonies, schools
were sadly neglected. In South Caro-
lina, prior to 1730, not a single gram-

376

SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES

mar school existed. Between 1731
and 1776 there were five, but they
were broken up by the Revolution.
In Georgia the chief educational
institution, prior to the Revolution,
was the famous Orphan House at
Bethesda, organized by Charles Wes-
ley and George Whitefield. On
March 25, 1740, the corner stone of
this school was laid by Whitefield
himself, and the institution did a
great service for the orphans of
Georgia for thirty years.

The education of women forms a
painfully short chapter in colonial
history. Education had hardly entered
woman's sphere, and few girls'
schools were founded in colonial
time's. The girls attended the dis-
trict summer schools and learned at
home to read, write and spell, but
from most Latin schools they were
strictly excluded. The Penn Charter
School of Philadelphia, however,
admitted both sexes on equal
terms from the time of its foun-
dation in 1689, and the Moravians
established a thriving school for girls
at Bethlehem, Pa., as early as 1745.

A glimpse into the individual lives
of the colonial schoolmasters affords
a most interesting picture. Of all
these, perhaps the most noted was
Ezekiel Cheever, author of the "Latin
Accidence," which was the standard
handbook of Latin instruction in New
England for more than a century.
Under his guidance, the Boston Latin
School, of which he was master for
thirty-eight years, became the prin-
cipal classical school of New Eng-
land. He died in 1708, aged ninety-
four, having been a teacher for
seventy years.

As to the course of study pursued

in the New England grammar
schools, the key-note is struck in the
Massachusetts law of 1647: "It being
one chief project of that old deluder,
Satan, to keep men from the knowl-
edge of the scriptures ... by
persuading from the use of tongues,"
etc. This suggestion foreshadowed
a superabundance of "tongues" and
Bible study in the curricula, and in
the grammar schools the classifica-
tion of students was based upon
Bible work. First was the Psalter
class, then the Testament class, and
lastly the Bible class. The Psalter
contained the Psalms, Proverbs,
Sermon on the Mount and the Nicene
Creed. The text-books used in the
district and grammer schools! were
such as the "New England Primer,"
the "New England Psalm Book,"
which, after fifty editions, was still in
use during the Revolution; the Dill-
worth Spelling Book, published about
1750, being the standard till super-
seded by Webster's about 1783;
Hodder's "Arithmetic, or that Neces-
sary Art made most easy; being ex-
plained in Way familiar to the Capa-
city of any that desire to learn it in a
Little Time," had passed through
twenty-five editions in 1719 and was
the only standard text until the ap-
pearance of Pike's Arithmetic in 1785.
Bailey's "English and Latin Gram-
mar" was used. Cheever's "Latin
Accidence," already noted, first is-
sued in 1645, was the most remark-
able of all. It was republished as
late as 1S38, with the approval of dis-
tinguished scholars throughout New
England. The pioneer in its line
was the "Universal Geography" of
Jedediah Morse, which appeared as
late as 1784, contained but four maps,

IN COLONIAL TIMES

377

yet it remained the standard text for
almost half a century.

The daily routine of the schoolboys
is thus described by McMaster: "To
sit eight hours a day on thel hardest
of benches poring over Cheever's
Accidence ; to puzzle over long words
in Dillworth's speller; to commit to
memory pages of words in Webster's
'American Institute;' to read long
chapters in the Bible ; to learn by
heart Dr. Watt's hymns for children;
to be drilled in the Assembly Cate-
chism; to go to bed at sundown, to
get up at sunrise, and to live on
brown bread and pork, porridge and
beans, made up, with morning and
evening prayers, the everyday life
of the lads at most of the acade-
mies and schools of New England.
When Sunday, or as the boys would
say, the Sabbath, came round, they
found it anything but a day of rest.
There were long prayers in the morn-
ing by the master, there were com-
mentaries on some scripture text to
be got by rote before meeting, to
which, dressed in their best, they
marched off with ink-pot and paper
to take down the heads of the sermon
and give what account of it they
could at evening prayers." The
master's business was to stand, rod
in hand, while his pupils pored for
hours over points in the lessons
which a few words of explanation
from him would have made plain,
But this must not be; the students
must root it out for themselves. Trum-
bull, the artist, when at Master Tis-
dale's Lebanon School, had to
spend three weeks in the vain en-
deavor to solve a problem in division.
It was against the master's pedagogi-
cal principles to help him, and he

strictly forbade any of the other boys
to do so. Josiah Quincy affirmed
that he studied over his "Latin Acci-
dence" twenty times.

Passing to the- college curriculum,
we find that at Harvard in its early
days it embraced three years of study.
According to Boone, it included two
years of Logic and something of
Physics, two years of Ethics and Poli-
tics, two years of Mathematics (arith-
metic and geometry) ; the equivalent
of four years of Greek and one year
each of Hebrew, Chaldee and Syriac.
Latin had to be mastered before en-
trance, its conversational use being
required of all students, and English
was "to be used under no pretext
whatever unless required in public
exercises." The Bible was systemat-
ically studied during all the three
years. A year was given to Cate-
chetical Divinity. Daily prayers
must be attended at six o'clock in the
morning and at five o'clock in the
afternoon. Natural science was
practically untouched. Concerning
degrees it was ordered that "Every
scholar that on proof is found able to
read the originals of the Old and
New Testament into the Latin
tongue, and to resolve them logically ;
withal being of Godly life and conver-
sation ; and at any public act hath the
approbation of the overseers and
master of the college, is fit to be dig-
nified with his first degree." All this
was in Harvard's first years. In the
early part of the following century,
under the wise administration oi
President Leverett, the course of
study was revised and broadened.
Latin conversation was not required
and Virgil and Cicero were inserted in
the course. Chaldee and Syriac were

378

SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES

omitted, while geography and more
physics were added. Finally, toward
the close of the colonial period the
instruction was classified into four
distinct groups: Latin, Greek, Logic
and Metaphysics, Mathematics and
Natural Philosophy. The curricula
of other colonial colleges were
similar, in general, to that of
Harvard which, being the pioneer,
served in a measure as a model for all.
To the college of William and Mary,
however, must be given the honor of
first duly appreciating the value and
importance of historical study.

The trials and difficulties which the
founders and supporters of these
early schools and colleges had to
meet in the work were many and
serious. When we consider the pov-
erty and embarrassment, the theo-
logical and political contentions, the
Indian panics and disturbances,
through which they passed; and
again, when the Revolution broke
out, how students and professors
alike left the colleges that the ranks
of the army might be filled, — we
wonder that these inchoate1 institu-
tions endured. Their beginnings
were like the grain of mustard seed.
During the first decade of its exist-
ence Harvard received but thirteen
hundred dollars from all New Eng-
land. The meagre salaries of her
presidents compelled some of them
to fill ministerial charges in Boston
to keep the wolf from the door, so
that during twenty years of its most
precarious existence it was without
a resident head. President Chauncy
lived in grinding poverty, and Presi-
dent Leverett died a bankrupt. Be-
fore the founding of Yale, each Con-
necticut farmer supported Harvard

by an annual donation of a peck ot
corn. The beginnings of Yale were,
if possible, still more,' humble than
those of Harvard. The gift of the
forty volumes of the ten ministers
was the foundation of its library. For
seventeen years the institution had no
permanent location and was part of
the time distributed among several
towns. All the students except
seniors were for several years per-
mitted to choose their own teachers
and locations. During the first ses-
sion there was but one student; and
this, for the time being, insured unity
of location, at least so far as the
student body was concerned. But as
the number of students increased, the
institution was divided and the
divisions shifted somewhat from
place to place. For a school of
twenty-five students to be scattered
in half a dozen towns seems utterly
ridiculous, yet such was Yale until
1 718, when it was unified and perma-
nently established at New Haven.
The entire contribution made by Con-
necticut to Yale before the Revolu-
tion did not exceed $25,000.

In many ways the college of Wil-
liam and Mary was unique among
colonial institutions. It was the first
of all, not to be established, but to be
conceived. It was the first one en-
dowed. It began its existence rich.
With the exception of King's Col-
lege (Columbia), founded 1754, also
under the patronage of the English
Church, it was the only one liberally
supported by the crown. These two
colleges, being the only ones of the
English Church, and also the only
ones receiving liberal royal support,
well illustrate the fact already dwelt
upon that, in those days, education

IN COLONIAL TIMES

379

was the child of the church rather
than of the state. William and Mary
was also the only college represented
in the state legislature. It was the
only one that enjoined celibacy
upon the members of its faculty. It
was the only colonial college of the
South. And it was pre-eminently the
mother of statesmen. In the first
three months of its existence it re-
ceived more financial support than
Harvard had in half a century. Yet
here, also, great difficulties had to> be
overcome. It was seventy years in
becoming established. It was twice
burned, and its libraries were lost.
In the Revolution it lost its landed in-
terests, and the depreciation of cur-
rency was fatal to its endowment and
revenues. Half of its faculty and
students left its halls to recruit the
army. Yet those sturdy Virginians

never wavered in their purpose of
founding a college, and having suc-
ceeded in this, they were no less reso-
lute in maintaining it.

In this brief survey we have pur-
posely limited our references to a few
of our pioneer institutions, but much
which has been said of them applies,
in a general way, to the others which
were founded in later colonial times.
Such were the humble beginnings of
the early schools and colleges of- our
land ; the highest praise which can be
given their founders and supporters
is the simple record of what they ac-
complished; the noblest monuments
which could be erected to their mem-
ory are the institutions they estab-
lished ; the deepest gratitude we can
show them is by the proper use and
extension of these institutions which
they have bequeathed to us.

How New Haven Came to be in
Connecticut

By Ernest H. Baldwin

TO a sincere admirer of the
fortitude and perseverance
of the Pilgrim and Puritan
founders of New England,
it seems almost a violation of his-
toric justice that the old colonies of
Plymouth and New Haven failed to
reach the dignity and honor of state-
hood in the American Union. Al-
though time has shown the advan-
tages of the forced union oi these
with their stronger neighbors, the
pioneer labors of the Pilgrim settlers

in Massachusetts and the untiring
exertions of the Puritan colonists at
Quinnipiac seem to have come short
of their deserved reward. Some of
the reasons for this were the same in
both cases. Each of these two colo-
nies failed to secure a royal charter,
and both were unable to realize that
measure of material success and im-
portance which was essential for con-
tinued independent colonial exist-
ence, one because of unfavorable
situation, the other on account of

380

HOW NEW HAVEN CAME

misfortune and disaster. The unto-
ward events which combined to im-
poverish the New Haven colonists
and frustrate their plans to procure a
charter of government and the cir-
cumstances which led to the absorp-
tion of their colony by Connecticut
form an interesting story.

No colony in old New England
was begun under conditions more
favorable, or with success more
promising, than the colony of New
Haven, founded at Quinnipiac by
John Davenport and Theophilus
Eaton, Its financial capital was
large, the learning and ability of its
leaders conspicuous, their experience
with affairs wide, and the courage
and determination of the settlers such
as characterized all the persecuted
Puritans of the time of Charles I and
Archbishop Laud. Commercial mo-
tives combined with religious at
Quinnipiac. The new town was de-
signed for an important trading cen-
tre governed by Puritan church mem-
bers ; its excellent harbor was to be
a safe haven for ships laden with rich
cargoes ; its laws were to be the "laws
of God as they were delivered by
Moses." The ambitious commercial
projects of these Puritan traders were
destined to result in failure, however,
and the financial loss carried with it
that of colonial independence.

The first disappointment came with
the discovery that, owing to the small
number of Indians remaining there,
the fur trade in the immediate neigh-
borhood of New Haven would never
reach any considerable proportions.
Plans were therefore made to estab-
lish trading stations on the Delaware,
where the prospect of a lucrative
commerce with the red men was more

promising. A number of the leading
merchants became sharers in the en-
terprise, and Captain George Lam-
berton was sent to> make a beginning
of a trading post at the southern end
of what is now New Jersey. This at-
tempt to secure a foothold on the
Delaware met with strenuous opposi-
tion from both the Dutch and Swedes,
who' claimed the territory. The New
Haven men were attacked and driven
away and their huts burned. Efforts
were made to recover damages, but in
vain. The expense of the undertak-
ing had been great and its failure
caused a very severe loss to the
merchant adventurers at Quinnipiac.
The Dutch at Manhattan had re-
sented the English invasion of the
lower Connecticut region from the
first, and they manifested particular
hositility to the Quinnipiac settle-
ment. The bold attempt to secure a
foothold on the Delaware increased
their animosity, and the New Haven
people, fearing an attack, began to
consider measures for defence. They
soon realized that protection by
mother England might become con-
venient and even necessary. A char-
ter from home would assure them of
such protection; but they had no
charter. When they left England in
1637, their leaders, Davenport and
Eaton, could not have obtained one if
they had asked it. King Charles
would have been more likely to have
thrown them into prison. So the col-
ony was founded practically as an in-
dependent state and did not even
acknowledge the king. It happened,
just at the time the attitude of the
Dutch was most threatening, that the
government of England wa's in the
hands of the Puritans. This sug-

TO BE IN CONNECTICUT

381

gested the feasibility of procuring a
charter. There was one serious ob-
stacle to the success of this plan, how-
ever ; that was the matter of expense.
Charters cost money. Fees must be
paid to numerous officials in the
course of the negotiations; the aid of
influential persons must be obtained
by means of rich gifts ; and an agent
must be employed.

Six years had passed since the set-
tlement of the colony and New Haven
had little money to spare. So much
of its capital had been expended in
building the town — and New Haven
contained some of the most elegant
houses to be found in New England—
and such severe losses had been ex-
perienced in the Delaware and other
enterprises, that the resources of the
colony were nearly exhausted. In
spite of these discouragements and
repeated failures, the New Haven
merchants were unwilling to abandon
their efforts to build up a successful
commercial city, and hoping to repair
their losses and at the same time pro-
vide money to secure a charter, they
combined their remaining capital in a'
new venture. This was nothing less
than the opening of direct trade be-
tween New Haven and England.
Thus far trade with the mother coun-
try had been carried on through Mas-
sachusetts Bay and in small ships.
Larger ships were required for the
ocean traffic, and no one person at
New Haven had sufficient capital to
build them.

In November, 1644, the General
Court at New Haven voted to send
Mr. Thomas Gregson, one of the
leading merchants, home to England
to get a charter for the colony. The
same court voted to raise for this ob-

ject the sum of two hundred pounds,
of which New Haven was to pay one
hundred and ten pounds in good sala-
ble beaver skins, and the other
towns the remaining ninety pounds.
More than a year passed before the
preparations necessary for Gregson's
departure could be made. A large
ship of one hundred and fifty tons
burden was purchased in Rhode Is-
land and then chartered by the "Com-
pany of Merchants of New Haven,"
of which Gregson was partner and
agent. The name of the ship is un-
known ; it is always mentioned in the
old records as the "great shippe."
Her cargo was worth many thou-
sands of dollars and comprised nearly
all the available capital of the little col-
ony. The cost of the desired charter
was to come out of the profits, which
would be large if the voyage proved
successful ; in case of failure the loss
would be ruinous to the commercial
hopes of New Haven, for the colony
had placed all its eggs in this one
basket.

The "great shippe," with Captain
Lamberton as master, and a number
of the homesick colonists as passen-
gers, sailed out of New Haven harbor
in January, 1646. The people of the
town followed several miles on the
ice, through which a channel had to
be cut before the vessel could enter
the sound. Their solemn faces and
tear-dimmed eyes betrayed the anx-
iety they felt for the safety of their
friends, for many had expressed the
opinion that the ship was unsea-
worthy; even Captain Lamberton
considered her "cranky." As the
event proved, their fears were well
founded. The vessel disappeared in
the gray east and was never heard of

382

HOW NEW HAVEN CAME

again. The story of her fate has been
touchingly related in Longfellow's
poem of the "Phantom Ship." She
probably foundered at sea and was
lost with all on board. As the months
went by and no tidings came of her
arrival in England, the stricken colony
was in despair. Mourners went about
the streets. The spirit of the people
was crushed. In fact, the disaster
nearly put an end to the New Haven
colony. The leaders talked seriously
of moving to Ireland. Oliver Crom-
well offered them a place for settle-
ment on the island of Jamaica, but
the fear of the plague in the West
Indies prevented the acceptance of
this offer; besides, many of the peo-
ple were now too old to again under-
go the hard labor of starting a new
colony. They were compelled to
give up their ambition of making New
Haven a commercial city and turned
their attention to farming. As for the
plan of securing a charter, that was
out of the question, for had they been
able to afford the attempt, it would
have been vain, as England was
in the midst of a civil war and Parlia-
ment was too busy fighting the king.
The unfortunate colony was destined
to continue without a charter and
eighteen years later be compelled to
submit to the more liberal civil au-
thority of a neighbor.

The Puritans who moved from
Massachusetts Bay and founded the
colony of Connecticut in the region
about Hartford in 1636, like the set-
tlers of New Haven, having no char-
ter, established an independent gov-
ernment. In 1644 they purchased
the territory along the Connecticut
River, which was known as the "War-
wick Grant." As the patent or deed

of this grant wasi in England, it was
not known definitely what extent it
had. It was not learned until later
that it included the territory of Quin-
nipiac ; and more than fifteen years
passed before Connecticut made any
claim to the jurisdiction of New
Haven. In the year 1660 the Puritan
Commonwealth came to an end in
England and Charles II became king.
Some of the persons appointed to in-
fluential positions in the new govern-
ment were friends of the Connecticut
settlers. Consequently it seemed a
favorable time for that colony to ap-
ply for a royal charter. As Governor
Winthrop was about to visit England
on private business, he was given a
commission to procure a charter and
was desired to have it cover all the
territory included in the Warwick
grant, even though it comprised the
sister colony of New Haven.

Meantime the appointment by
New Haven of a committee to "set
out the bounds with lasting marks"
between the two colonies provided a
convenient opportunity for Connecti-
cut to advance a claim to the Quin-
nipiae territory and thus pave the way
for their comprehensive charter. In
a letter in which they objected to
"further proceedings in this nature,"
the Connecticut authorities claimed to
be "the true proprietors of these
parts of country," and declared that
New Haven could not "be ignorant"
of their "real and true right" to them
"both by conquest, purchase and pos-
session." This bold claim occasioned
great surprise and indignation at New
Haven. Of course it could not be
permitted to go unchallenged, and
another committee was appointed in
Mav, 1 66 1, to consult with Connecti-

TO BE IN CONNECTICUT

383

cut "in reference to the dividing
bounds betwixt them, and of some
seeming right to this jurisdiction,
which they pretend." This was the
beginning of a long and heated con-
troversy, which was characterized by
indignant stubbornness on the part of
New Haven and uncompromising in-
sistence on the side of Connecticut,
and which ended only with the un-
conditional surrender of the former.

When Mr. Davenport learned of
Connecticut's ambitious plans for a
charter, he wrote to his friend, Gover-
nor Winthrop, warning him not to> be
concerned in "so unrighteous an act"
as the inclusion of the New Haven
colony in the proposed instrument.
Winthrop's reply was quite reassur-
ing. He said, in effect, that the Con-
necticut magistrates had agreed that
if the new patent should be found to
include New Haven that colony
should be at full liberty to join with
them or not. The Connecticut gov-
ernor evidently believed that such a
union would be advantageous and
that it could be accomplished by
mutual agreement. There were others
in Connecticut, however, who thought
that the forced union of the two
- would be best for all concerned.
These people probably counted upon
the support of that growing party in
the New Haven colony which openly
expressed dissatisfaction with the
theocratic government maintained by
the influence of Mr. Davenport. The
discontented individuals who com-
posed this party coveted the privileges
of their neighbors' more liberal
system; for, in Connecticut, all free-
men could vote, whether church
members or not. Even William
Leete, the timid governor of New

Haven, favored the union and urged
Winthrop to procure a charter in-
cluding both; but the consideration
that moved him was, that during his
administration, New Haven had
harbored the regicides Whalley and
Goffe, and had in consequence in-
curred the displeasure of the home
government; he thought that the
justly feared punishment might be
avoided if New Haven should come
under the sheltering wing of Connect-
icut. The position thus taken by the
New Haven governor met with severe
criticism from the independent party;
Mr. Davenport declared that "it was
not done by him according to his
public trust as governor, but contrary
to it."

Governor Winthrop's mission to
England was very successful. With
the assistance of influential friends he
obtained from the king a most liberal
charter. It granted privileges and
immunities which made the Connecti-
cut colony practically self-governing,
and indeed so excellent were its pro-
visions that it was used as a state con-
stitution for nearly thirty years after
the formation of the Union. As Win-
throp decided to remain in England
longer than he at first intended, he for-
warded the charter to New England,
where it was read to the commission-
ers for the United Colonies at Boston
in September, 1662, and a month later
was presented to the grantees at a
meeting of the General Court, held
at Hartford. As was expected, the
new patent included in its jurisdiction
the territory of New Haven, although
that colony was not expressly named.
At this same meeting of the Hartford
Court a number of the inhabitants of
Guilford and Southold, towns in the

384

HOW NEW HAVEN CAME

New Haven colony, having learned
previously that their settlements were
comprehended in this new charter,
presented themselves and, upon their
own request, were received under the
government and protection of the
Connecticut colony. However justi-
fied Connecticut might seem, accord-
ing to the strict letter of the law, in
thus deliberately and without warning
dismembering a sister colony, the act
was certainly characterized by an en-
tire lack of courtesy and a disposition
to take unfair advantage. A due
regard for the feelings of their New
Haven friends would have first
prompted, at least, a considerate, if
firm, announcement of the investment
of a superior authority.

After thus appropriating several
towns in its jurisdiction, Connecticut
sent to the New Haven colony a copy
of the new charter, calling attention
to its provisions and expressing an
"earnest desire that there may be a
happy and comfortable union" be-
tween them. When, at the same time,
the New Haven authorities received
information that they had already
been dispossessed of several of their
towns, their indignation was great;
but their immediate acknowledgment
of the notification was calm and digni-
fied. They promised to communicate
the message to the freemen and an-
swer as soon as convenient; "Only
we desire that the issuing of matters
may be respited until we may receive
fuller information from the Honored
Mr. Winthrop or satisfaction other-
wise, and that in the mean time this
colony may remain distinct entire
and uninterrupted, as heretofore,
which we hope you will see cause lov-
ingly to consent unto, and signify the

same to us with convenient speed."
Three weeks later — November 4,
1662 — the freemen of the New Haven
colony met to consider the Connecti-
cut claim and take measures for the
preservation of their independence.
All looked to Mr. Davenport for ad-
vice and suggestion. He was very
willing and ready to proffer them, for
he bitterly opposed the union. He
had labored long and suffered much
to establish in the new world a state
whose government should be in the
hands of church members only. The
loss of colonial independence would
mean the failure of his cherished
hopes.

The reply sent to Connecticut by
the New Haven freemen declared that
nothing could be found in the new
patent to warrant the alteration of
"the orderly settlements of New Eng-
land," renewed the request to be left
"distinct" until the truth of the mat-
ter could be learned from Mr. Win-
throp or the king, and contained an
emphatic protest against the division
already made in their colony before
"so much as a treaty" had been made
with them "in a Christian, neighborly
way." Inclosed in the reply was a
statement of the reasons adduced by
Mr. Davenport to prove that New
Haven was not included under the
jurisdiction of the charter. In the
first place the name of New Haven
was not mentioned in the document,
and that colony had always been
treated as separate and independent,
not only by the other New England
colonies, including Connecticut, but
by the king himself. Certainly the
king would not have included them
without their desire and knowledge,
and if Connecticut had had any such

TO BE IN CONNECTICUT

385

intention, they surely would have been
consulted before Mr. Winthrop went
to England. If it should appear,
however, after an appeal to the king,
that the union of the two colonies
was intended, they would submit
"according to God."

Finding that Connecticut paid no
attention to their protest but "per-
sisted in" her "own will and way," the
New Haven authorities resolved to
appeal to the king, being persuaded
that it was not his pleasure to con-
found the two colonies and so destroy
the "long continued" and "strongly
settled distinction of the four United
Colonies of New England" Word was
accordingly sent to their friends in
London, asking them to confer with
Mr. Winthrop and then, if satisfaction
could not be obtained from him, to
present their appeal to his Majesty.
When Governor Winthrop learned
the situation of affairs he immedi-
ately stopped the movement for
appeal by promising to obtain
satisfaction for the injury done
by Connecticut. He then wrote to
the Connecticut Court, informing
them that the charter had been pro-
cured with the plain understanding
that no plantation settled under any
other government was to be meddled
with, and that any action which had
been taken by Connecticut detrimen-
tal to New Haven should be re-
scinded. The letter conveying this
information, addressed to the Con-
necticut authorities, was sent to the
New Haven governor, with the ex-
pectation that he would forward it to
Hartford. Mr. Leete, evidently sup-
posing it to be a copy of the original,
probably retained it, as Connecticut is
said never to have received it. What-

ever the reason, New Haven obtained
no satisfaction as a result of Mr.
Winthrop's promise and underwent
the added humiliation of having Con-
necticut officers authorized to act in
her towns.

March 20, 1663, Connecticut made
certain liberal propositions for a
settlement of the difficulty between
the two colonies, but New Haven re-
jected them upon the plea that while
their appeal to the king was pending,
any action in the matter would be
improper ; besides it was antici-
pated that Mr. Winthrop's return
would speedily end the controversy
in New Haven's favor. New Haven
was disappointed in this expectation,
however, for, upon his return in June,
1663, the Connecticut governor im-
mediately adopted the policy of his
associates, having been convinced,
seemingly, that the desired union by
mutual consent would be impossible.
Proposals and counter proposals
made by both colonies during the
summer of 1663 not only failed to se-
cure an amicable settlement, but re-
sulted in more strained relations. No
compromise regarding the qualifica-
tions for freemen could be effected,
New Haven insisting upon her
peculiar policy and finally declining
to treat any further until Connecticut
"first restore us to our right state
again." Encouragement to persist in
this firm stand was received from the
commissioners of the United Colonies
of New England, who rendered a
decision in her favor, and from the
home government by letters addressed
to the New Haven authorities — a dis-
tinct recognition of their separate and
independent existence. Taking! ad-
vantage of this latter acknowledg-

386

HOW NEW HAVEN CAME

merit the New Haven magistrates
issued a proclamation calling upon all
persons who had separated from the
colony to return to their rightful al-
legiance and pay their arrears of rates.
This proclamation was boldly torn
down by the Connecticut constable at
Stamford ; and when it was published
in Guilford two men, affected by it,
immediately repaired to Hartford and
demanded protection. Several Con-
necticut officers returned with them
to Guilford, where, arriving late at
night, they created much alarm by
firing off guns. Governor Leete, who
lived in the town, fearing trouble,
hastily sent to Branford and New
Haven for assistance. A number of
soldiers responded, but, upon their
arrival, found nothing but noise and
excitement to quell. After requesting
Governor Leete not to collect taxes
from Connecticut citizens until the
dispute over the charter was settled,
the armed invaders withdrew.

This affair at Guilford necessitated
another attempt at a conference, but
New Haven, "considering how fruit-
less all former treaties had been and
that they had formerly ordered that
there should be no more treaty with
them unless they first restore us those
members which they had so un-
righteously taken from us, therefore
did now again confirm the same.''4
Nevertheless, it was determined to
have a statement of all their griev-
ances drawn up and forwarded to
Connecticut. This writing, prepared
by Mr. Davenport and Mr. Street,
and entitled "New Haven's Case
Stated," was a lengthy document and
contained, besides a complete history
of the controversy, with the grounds
of defence, an appeal for just and

righteous treatment. Connecticut's
reply, which, it is believed, was never
sent to New Haven, was somewhat
sarcastic and bantering in tone and
an unsatisfactory answer to the New
Haven paper. "To untie this knot
and pretense of yours," it began, "in
all the particulars of it, states the
whole case you have presented in
your large schedule and multiloquous
pennings ; therefore as methodically
as we can, and curt, as the little time
we have allowed . . . will per-
mit, in few words we have addressed
ourselves for resolution and your con-
viction." To the declaration that she
had maintained her territory against
the claim of the Dutch "by hewing
out the King's Arms in wood," the
reply sarcastically said, "marble and
brass are the more lasting;" and to
New Haven's claim that it could be
mathematically demonstrated that
her bounds were not included in the
charter, Connecticut replied, "For
your mathematical measures and dis-
covery, it might do us some service
in the line betwixt us and the Massa-
chusetts, if you have an able artist,
when he is desired by them and us
to attend that service ; but our charter
is the true astrolobe for our south
bounds."

Thus the relations between the two
colonies were at a deadlock, for al-
though more persons in the New
Haven towns were beginning to
favor the union, Mr. Davenport and
his party still controlled the colony
and prevented submission. More
than two years had now passed since
the charter was procured, and Con-
necticut was about to take some
definite compulsory action in the
matter, when a very unexpected

TO BE IN CONNECTICUT

387

event put a sudden end to the dis-
agreeable situation. In March, 1664,
King Charles II made to his brother,
the Duke of York, a grant of ex-
tensive territory in America. This gift
included all the land between the
Connecticut and Delaware Rivers and
therefore comprised the colony of
New Haven. The territory of the
Dutch was also covered by the grant
and a fleet was despatched to conquer
it. With this fleet came four royal
commissioners, invested with power
to settle disputes and fix boundaries
between colonies.

This was a new and alarming
danger for New Haven and Connecti-
cut. The people of both colonies
feared the loss of their liberties, for
the Duke of York was a Royalist and
no friend of the Puritans. Under
these circumstances the movement for
union with Connecticut rapidly pro-
gressed in the New Haven colony, for
it was believed that in union would be
strength sufficient to maintain the
new charter and their liberties. The
town of Milford soon voted to join
Connecticut, and that left only Guil-
ford and Branford to New Haven.
Meantime the Dutch at Manhattan
were conquered, and the name of the
settlement changed to New York.
The royal commissioners then having
fixed the boundary line between New
York and Connecticut, placed New
Haven in the latter colony and thus
rendered it necessary for her to sub-
mit. The freemen and other inhab-
itants of the defeated colony met at
New Haven December 13, 1664, and
passed the following vote:

"1. First that by this act of vote
we be not understood to justify Con-
necticut's forme/r actings, nolr any-

thing disorderly done by our own
people upon such accounts.

"2. That by it we be not appre-
hended to have any hand in breaking
or dissolving the confederation.

"Yet in testimony of our loyalty to
the king's Majesty, when an authentic
copy of the determination of his
commissioners is published to be re-
corded with us, if thereby it shall ap-
pear to our committee that we are by
his Majesty's authority now put
under Connecticut patent, we shall
submit, as from necessity brought
upon us by their means of Connecti-
cut aforesaid, but with a salvo jure
of our former right and claim,
as a people who have not yet
been heard in point of plea." Thus
New Haven lost her colonial inde-
pendence and became a part of Con-
necticut.

Most people soon forgot the bitter
quarrel and were contented with the
new arrangement. Some were never
reconciled to it, however. The people
of Branford were so dissatisfied that
they left their town and moved to
New Jersey, where they founded the
city of Newark. But no one felt a
keener disappointment over the affair
than Mr. Davenport. His great am-
bition was destroyed ; he was broken-
hearted, and would not be comforted.
A few years later he moved to Bos-
ton where, shortly afterwards, his dis-
appointed life ended. But the city
he left in sorrow and which owes so
much to him has never forgotten nor
ceased to revere his name ; and the
blessings which resulted from the
union he tried so- hard to prevent
have long since buried in oblivion
the wrong which helped to bring it
about.

The Stream

By Ormsby A. Court

Never a thought has the little stream,

Singing its careless way;
Purling good-uight to the stars that gleam,

Merrily greeting the day;
Flashing a smile at the flaming sun,
But never a thought for the day that's done.

Never a thought has the little stream,
Though tears on its bosom drip;

And never of grief does it even dream,
Though it mirrors a trembling lip ;

But on it gurgles and splashes with glee,

Till its course is lost in the sounding sea.

388

Titian's Madonna in the Church of the Frari. Venice

New England Magazine

New Series

DECEMBER, 1902

VOL. XXVII NO. 4

Titian's Country

By Margaret Waldo Higginson

FROM Venice, across the lazy,
sunny lagoons and the low-
flat lands away to the north,
just at the edge of the far
horizon, there rises a dim blue out-
line of distant hills, and to this the
Venetians point and say, "That is
Titian's country." Many a little
lagoon-bred girl and patient woman
living and toiling under the scorch-
ing midsummer sun looks off to
those mountains as to Paradise it-
self, so cool, so mysterious, so un-
known. Sometimes a gray-haired
old woman or a sunburnt young
matron, with her bambino in her
arms, stops before Titian's wonder-
ful Madonna in the church of the
Frari, and as she repeats her me-
chanical little prayer, looks up with
longing and wonder at the blueness

of the calm mountains behind the
Mother and Child.

It is not so far as it looks from
Venice to the Dolomites, only four
hours in the train, and every mile is
a delight. The traveller feels a pull
at his heart strings as the train
backs out of the station, with the
bronze-faced affectionate gondoliers
crowded about the watery steps.
Bit by bit he skims over the flat
marshes left by the receding waters
of the lagoons, with just the slender
steel thread on which the train is
balanced stretching along between.
Finally all he can see are the red
spires of San Giorgio and the tower
of the Campanile, with, between,
only the lowlands and the sea. Soon
even the sea disappears, and sud-
denly, with a bound, he is in a

391

The Lake at Toblach

cooler, clearer atmosphere, hemmed
in on all sides by green, a delicious
change after sun-baked Venice. The
quiet meadows, little hedges and
white cottages seem like England ;
and the fields and ploughed lots are
neat and clean, with peasants work-
ing on them, many colored and
cheery to the last degree. Jolly lit-
tle boys are tumbling about on the
grass, or on the clean white steps of
cottages, hooting with glee as the
train sweeps past ; and the white
roads that wind away into the
greenness are so shining and allur-
ing that one wants to jump from
the train and investigate them.

Suddenly, without warning, the
hills begin to come, big and green,
or seamed like those in Madeira,
with white cottages nestling under
them in tiny groups. By and by the
hills become mountains, big, gray,
392

and almost covered with soft mys-
terious clouds. Once in a while a
peak creeps out of the mystery and
shows its snow-covered crest and
the bold black fissures down its
sides. Then a "sudden little river"
will appear, so shallow that the
round white stones at the bottom
show through, in spite of its queer
lime-like color. It is "sluggish,"
too, like the one in "Childe Roland,"
but gets broader and broader, and
finally succeeds in following the
train to Belluno. It is delicious to
run into a little shower, and it al-
most makes one feel as if one had |
flown over the British Channel and
all the miles between and were
speeding through the Scottish High-
lands.

But now the train has stopped,
and the real Dolomites, though not
the highest, are near at hand, sur-

TITIAN'S COUNTRY

393

rounding the quaint town of Bel-
luno. After dinger walk out along
the road a bit, and see what a fas-
cinating little country village it is,
with the loitering peasants passing
and the bold black mountains loom-
ing above. The tops of the moun-
tains look like big black icicles
turned upside down ; whole-families
of them seem to be seated all along
in rows. Some look delicate enough
to break off and ,i all at any moment,
and it is awkward when they tumble
on innocent "human beings, thereby
sweeping iliem off the face of the
earth. There are houses, or rem-
nants of houses, in Belluno which
came down from a hilltop in a land-
slide, and there was a lawsuit and
much excitement between the man
who owned the hilltop and the man
who owned the land on which in so
evil an hour the cottages had de-
scended. We innocently went to
look at the hill, but there was none,
it having probably come down with
the houses.

From Belluno a wonderful coun-
try stretches away on all sides, the
exquisite greenness only broken by
occasional ploughed fields, where
brightly clad and brightly smiling
women toil all day. We hardly saw.

Belluno

a peasant anywhere among the
Dolomites that did not smile and
give us a brisk "Buon giomo" as we
passed. As to the swarming chil-
dren, it was almost impossible in
driving not to run over them, for
they sprawled and straddled and sat
all over the road, or even more con-
tentedly— and safely — in the gutter,
making dust pies with serious faces.
All ages and sexes and colors were
represented, and all stages of aston-
ishment at this strange new world
in which they found themselves.
The precise amount of clothing
which adorned their small bodies
seemed of little or no account to
them, the less the better. After all,
perhaps as small a garment as pos-
sible, in a sunny gutter on a June
day, if one is small and brown and
Italian, may be the height of bliss.

The gods who had the Dolomites
under their especial supervision de-
creed a vast amount of rain during
our stay at Belluno, treating us to a
formidable thunderstorm each af-
ternoon with great regularity, and
sometimes to even a tremendous
downpour, minus thunder, in the

The Ragged Dolomite Peaks

morning, without the least excuse.
But we paddled off in the hardest
showers, to the consternation of the
English people, huddled before a
very cold stove in the hotel. We
found bewitching walks, and even
when we would resolve to penetrate,
come what might, a sopping, but
most alluring little lane, all mud
and dripping branches, and would
patiently push to the end, only to
turn up at an un-get-over-able
fence, the wet greenness was
enough reward. A solitary walk is
one of the best things in the world,
as Stevenson and Hazlitt bear wit-
ness; all the warm, living produc-
tions of nature come near to one ;
every leaf and grass blade seems to
be quivering in sympathy, and the
little human flowers scattered
about take one as peacefully and
quietly as they.

Going off on a long tramp one
394

day, through the funny little Old
World town, where the women were
washing away merrily in the very
yellow river, the way led between
meadows, and then up a steep hill
with a crumbling old church at the
top, sitting all by itself, looking
down at the valley beneath and the
great ragged mountains above.
There was a magnificent thunder-
storm up in the mountains, and rest-
ing on a bank, with sweetly smell-
ing hay fields above and below, I
watched the grumbling clouds roll
back and forth. Drops of rain be-
gan to fall, and everything was very
still and peaceful. Two little yellow-
haired children were playing in the
grass (while their parents worked
in a field near by), weaving marvel-
lous garlands out of the fallen leaves
and twigs as peacefully and uncon-
cernedly as if all this blackness and
growling yonder were no more than

TITIAN'S COUNTRY

395

the sunshine. When it rained
harder they pulled their little aprons
over their yellow heads and went on
playing.

As I turned to go a small boy
came trotting down the path, a wee
fellow, with a straw hat twice too
large for him, and a most formidable
black band twice too large for the
hat. He came along with a care-
less, nonchalant air, stopping at
every haystack to hide something
therein out of his pocket. Whether
it was a tangible treasure or some
freak of the imagination, I could not
discover. Finally he came to where
some clothes, thrown down by some
workman, were lying. This was
evidently his objective point, for he
grabbed them up and slung them
over his small back, from which,
one by one, they dribbled off to the
ground. I called to him and pointed,
and he came slowly back, gazing
solemnly at me, not at the clothes,
till finally some point of humor
seeming to enter his youthful mind,
he smiled a tiny smile and a little
dimple tried to proclaim itself in one
cheek. I turned around again a
moment later, and lo ! he had made
a new discovery, and was belabor-
ing the fence with a large knife that
had evidently fallen out of one of
the pockets of the ill-fated garments.
But the wood did not yield under
his mighty strokes, and this seemed
to surprise him, for he worked on
and on, with an air of ever-increas-
ing wonder and injury.

Coming down, another little lad-
die, a wee, happy urchin, followed
me along the steep rocky ' path,
swinging a straw basket lustily as

he went. We passed a barn and
heard a dreadful wailing and groan-
ing from within. He said it was a
sheep. I asked him if the poor
thing were being killed. "Oh, no,"
he said, "it is only crying because it
is alone !"

The lake of Santa Croce, not far
from Belluno, is almost more won-
derful in color than Lucerne, with a
depth of exquisite greenness that I
have never seen in any other water.
It is all shut in by big wooded hills,
and a queer, black, dingy little group
of about half a dozen huts — they are
hardly houses — comprises the vil-
lage. Picturesque old women sit
in doorways toward nightfall, giv-
ing the stranger a smiling "Buona
sera" and the inevitable infant top-
ples around in the gutter, regarding
him with a shy glimpse of baby
teeth, broadening into a full smile
at last if their owner decides he is a

396

TITIAN'S COUNTRY

good sort of fellow and can be
trusted.

The peasant women in Belluno
are most picturesque. Much of the
money they earn they spend on gold
and silver ornaments, which are
often very beautiful, and are manu-
factured in the village. These
trinkets give rather an overdressed
appearance, when worn by women
drawing carts, their feet cased in
wooden shoes, their hair stuck full
of upright, delicately wrought pins,
while from their ears hang pen-
dants, often of the very same design
as the earrings which figure in
Titian's paintings.

Sometimes through the quiet
streets, far away, one hears a sol-
emn chanting and a sound of march-
ing feet, and it comes nearer and
nearer, until the splendid deep-toned
voices are right below the window;
it is a little funeral procession pass-

ing by. The strong-faced priests
bear banners aloft, singing as they
go; then comes the peasant's bare
coffin, and then the mourners, each
with a candle ; the women, even the
little girls, wearing black kerchiefs
over their bent heads. The chil-
dren's heads are not always bent
though ; they may be looking about
cheerily and unconcernedly, as if it
were a common occurrence and had
no manner of significance.

There are some remarkable baths
near Belluno. We drove there one
day to inspect them, and had tea
outside in a pine grove, with merry
children and excited dogs racing
about. The proprietor came out, a
little white-haired old man, lame,
with a stick, and very much cross-
eyed, but polite and courteous to the
last degree. He told us all about
the establishment, how he had been
thirty years making it, and how

Antalao, the Highest of the Dolomites

now he was quite contented, quite
contented. His four sons carried it
on, and — Did many forestieri come
there? No, not many, but a great
many Italians. Then the old man,
in the pride and excitement of his
possessions, must have us drive
through the pergola and to the milk
cure at the other end of the grounds.
He began hobbling along at our
side, but we dragged him into the
carriage, amidst his fluttering prot-
estations and "molte grazie." All
the time he chattered away, showing
us this thing and that, and once in a
while his face would light up and
he would point up to the top of a
hill or down into a valley, and tell
us that it was "all his, all, all," and
.his old eyes would beam with de-
light.

The road that leads away from
Belluno and goes on among the

higher mountains is worthy of
Switzerland. Most of the way sheer
wooded cliffs tower up one side of
the road, and on the other there is a
plunge down into the green valley
below, where once the Austrians
and Italians fought so bitterly.
Here the little yellow river, the
Pieve, rushes along, and behind
it the land ascends to the over-
shadowing mountains, with trees in
single file standing, like sentinels, at
the top of those that are not high
enough to deserve snow. After five
hours behind the plodding horses
this road leads to Tai-di-Cadore, a
tiny town set in the midst of snowy
mountains, with Antalao, the high-
est of all the Dolomites, just poking
its nose up from behind.

There is almost an excitement
about this quiet region, for at Pieve-
di-Cadore, less than a mile from

397

398

TITIAN'S COUNTRY

Titian's Birthplace, Pieve-di-Cadore

Tai, Titian was born. The whole
place is redolent of him. Every-
body is still a "Vicellio," the grocer,
the baker and the candlestick maker,
and "Albergo Tiziano" and "Piazza
Tiziano" flaunt their signs on high.
There is a large statue of the painter
in the middle of the Piazza, and just
around the corner is the house where
he was born. It is a diminutive
place, old and ramshackle as possi-
ble, and leaning up against its
neighbors for support. A blooming
young woman, carrying a marvel-
lous-eyed child, came to the door to
admit us, and showed us first the
big smoky kitchen, with the queer
old fireplace in the middle of the
floor, and shining pots and kettles
hanging on the walls ; and then
two tiny low-ceiled rooms upstairs,
which were successively the birth-
room and studio of the painter.
Neither of these had any personal
interest, being whitewashed over
and converted into the modern bed-
rooms of the two humble families
who now live there.

The large house next door, which
had belonged to Titian's uncle, is
still partly covered with frescoes,
though they are fading and crum-
bling pathetically. The only one of
real value was taken down and put

inside the house. This is very
crude, being done when the artist
was only ten years old, but charm-
ing. It is supposed to be Titian
himself, asking the blessing of the
Virgin before he begins his life
work, and it is said that Ruskin
thought it the only one of Titian's
pictures that was painted in a really
religious spirit. It is supposed to
have been done with the juice of
flowers, before the boy learned the
use of paints.

In the queer old museum we saw
the first thing that Titian ever did,
an angel — very exquisite she was,
too — painted on a bit of board. In
the church where the Vicellio family
are buried there are two Madonnas,
one his own family grouped, his
daughter the Virgin, himself a
strong black figure in the back-
ground ; the other, the Mother and
Child, with San Rocco and the in-
evitable St. Sebastian, pinned with
arrows to a tree, as usual. This lat-
ter was done, it is believed, in the
time of the plague ; the two central
figures are much like the "Marriage
of St. Catherine." Most of the
other pictures in the church are by
other Vicellios (there were five art-
ists in the family), and behind the
altar is a little figure of Christ by
Palma Vecchio.

But go into the dim refectory, and
there are quaint panels, almost black
with age, for they were done by un-
known artists long before Titian's '
day, but with the earnestness and
the big faith which inspired them
still shining out from the crude,
faded faces. There is one Madonna
which in the stiffness of its lines is
more remarkable than anything I

Frescoed House in Cortina
The Paintings Symbolize Man's Life from Childhood to Old Age

ever hope to see. I gazed upon it
with wonder ; crazy looking angeis
had scattered themselves about in
mid-air in the foreground, and two
oxen were making a violent attempt
to squeeze both their heads out of
one very small window. We tried
to get a photograph of this and of
some of the others', especially one
of a saint leading a child by the
hand — such a depth of earnestness
there was in his face and such a
lightness in his feet — but not one
was to be had in the town. It ap-
parently has never entered the peo-
ple's heads to photograph the pic-
tures ; their native hills and moun-
tains they show with pride, but that
is all.

The woman who exhibited the
church was an utterly wizened old
crone, with a face so shrunken and

furrowed that there was hardly any
of it left. But she was cheerily
garrulous, and overcome with grati-
tude at the twenty centimes we put
into her bony old hand at parting,
went courtesying and smiling down
the street. The woman who showed
us the museum was even more re-
markable, for not having once con-
descended to open her lips all the
time we were in the building, the
minute we had finished she dashed
madly down the street to her house
and disappeared therein. Whether
she had wild ideas that her dinner
was burning up, or whether it was
to indicate in a delicate manner that
she was above such things as fees,
we could not imagine.

Within an hour's drive from Tai,
up among the mountains, there is a
place called Treponte, where three

399

Up Among the Mountains

bridges meet over a roaring, tum-
bling little mountain river, and An-
talao looks down big and shining
from above. Here it is very wild
and lonely, with a stillness that
speaks. Big sunburnt peasant wom-
en, always smiling and cheery, are
working in the fields, brilliant spots
of color against the green of the
grass, or the rich brown of the
freshly upturned earth ; sometimes
they stagger along under huge bun-
dles of straw, so little of the bearers
showing underneath that it almost
seems as if the haystacks were mys-
teriously animated with life. Why
is it that the Tyrolese peasants al-
ways smile? Is it like Stevenson's
small boy in the "Apology for
Idlers," through the mere joy of
being alive, or is it an innate cheeri-
ness which endures in even the
hardest life? Perhaps it is only that
400

they live all their lives out of doors.
If we could all do this, I sometimes
think there would be lighter hearts
among us. All through the Dolo-
mites women do the outdoor work;
the men are either serving out their
period of conscription in the army
or are at work by the river in the
lumber mills, shipping huge logs to
float off by themselves to Venice.
As we drove home from Treponte
the sun was setting, and it was very
dear and peaceful everywhere. The
peasants were coming home from
their work, walking with their day's
labor on their backs, or riding in
cheerful groups on lumber wagons
drawn by lazy oxen. Little boys
were driving gentle-faced white cat-
tle, with lambs and goats trotting
along behind. And above all this
peacefulness the still more peaceful
mountains loomed up into the sky,

Cortina

their white peaks just touched by
the lingering sun.

Cortina d'Ampezzo is a veritable
garden of the gods. Of all the places
I have ever seen, with the possible
exception of Venice, my heart is
most closely drawn to this one, and
when I die I would far rather go
there than Paris! The atmos-
phere of the place seems almost
Swiss, for the Austrian frontier is
past, and the town is full of travel-
lers with alpen-stocks, and little
booths with jumbles of small sou-
venirs are on every side. Italian is
still spoken a good deal — many of
the peasants know both languages,
as both are taught in the schools —
but the sounding German gutturals
are most to the fore, and this is the
last town where there is any trace
of Italy. Even the change in the
dress of the peasants is noticeable,

for immediately after the boundary
is past the women begin to disport
themselves in queer squat Derbys,
with huge ribbon streamers hanging
down behind; and the children are
the same in miniature, looking very
funny staggering along under this
extraordinary headgear. What a
sad change from the picturesque
kerchiefs of Italy ! The fair Ger-
man lassies, with their neat braids
twined about their unbeautiful little
heads, are also, though worthy, a
grievous comedown after that deli-
cious Italian infant world.

Cortina is placed, a rare gem in a
marvellous setting, in a valley, with
great green smooth meadows sweep-
ing up to the wooded feet of the
mountains. And above the larch
woods the bold red of the shaggy
peaks towers onward up into the
sky. There is no other color in the

401

402

TITIAN'S COUNTRY

world like the red of those moun-
tains, unless it be the wonder of
the lingering sunset gold turning
them to flame, with the shadows
and the damp darkness gathering
below.

The town itself is white and
peaceful, with that air of brooding
calm which is vouchsafed to little
towns living under the shadows of
great mountains. The sun beats
down heavily at noonday, but the
peasants are out in their clattering
wooden shoes ; later, we too start
out, cross the river, strike into the
woods, and lose ourselves in the
stillness and the flowers. Did one
ever imagine so many flowers,
stretching away as far as the eye
can see? There are whole fields of
palest blue, and these are forget-me-
nots ; there are whole fields of palest
yellow, and these are "johnny-jump-
ups," laden with fragrance ; then
come pink fields, and white fields,
and fields with all the colors to-
gether, like huge daubs of paint
upon the mountain side. There are

primroses and English cowslips,
white, purple and yellow violets,
marsh marigolds overflowing all the
little brooks; anemones, wild hya-
cinths, big double buttercups, colum-
bine and ladies' slippers; lilies of the
valley, red, pink and white field lil-
ies ; orchids of all kinds, too, fra-
grant as can be, and all sorts of little
running vines, flowering timidly and
modestly, but scenting the whole
wood with their perfume. Up in
the fields behind, the grass is full of
wee pinklets (I have no idea of their
real name), with tiny marvellously
blue gentians of different varieties
dotted around among them. Then
directly under the cool shadow of
the mountain tops the edelweiss
grows.

Now shall we drive to Tre Croce?
The road is narrow, steep and
rough, so that the driver will walk
most of the way and urge on the
panting horses. By and by big
patches of snow begin to lie along
the road, vying with the timid clus-
ters of mountain crocuses just ven-

A CHRISTMAS TANGLE

403

turing to peep up into what they
thought was going to be summer.
Black shady pools are dumped in
amid the deep woods, and here
groups of chattering peasant women
will be squatted, minding the goats
who stray about nibbling at the
rocky soil. Finally we arrive where
it is bleak and cold, and even a bit
uncanny and grotesque, where the
three crosses are planted side by

side, at the top of a hill. We do not for the night.

care to stay there very long, but
hasten back to the warm living na-
ture below. Let us walk down,
through the gorgeous fields or the
cool little paths that run through the
woods, with tiny cascades leaping
and tumbling from the shaggy peaks
above, and we shall reach Cortina
again just as the sun is setting, and
the red peaks glow above, and the
flowers are shutting up their eyes

A Christmas Tangle

By Harriet. A. Nash

A WAVE of warm air, odor-
ous with fir and cedar,
greeted Mrs. Parker as she
pushed open the church
door. It was past sunset, and the
six kerosene lamps made six circles
of light, fading into gloom on the
edges where they met and inter-
sected, bringing out in spots the
mottoes and rope trimming on the
walls, draping in a pleasing obscu-
rity the discolored ceiling, and lend-
ing an air of mystery even to the
dim outlines of the long stove fun-
nel, now twined with evergreen.
The very air was full of mystery
and delight. The front pews were
piled with packages which busy
hands were transferring to two tall
fir trees, standing in time honored
position each side the pulpit. A
select committee of church sisters
hovered about the trees bestowing

candy-bags, popcorn balls and
strings of cranberries in every
vacant space.

The newcomer gave an admiring
exclamation, quite oblivious of the
fact that she had not been invited
to assist in the decoration. It was
something of a slight, according to
the social code which governed the
popular opinions of the brick meet-
ing-house, but Mrs. Parker, being
the fortunate possessor of a nature
far removed from petty considera-
tions, had determined to harbor no
hard feeling therefor.

"I've brought in a few little
things," she explained, drawing
from her reticule a variety of pack-
ages. There were bookmarks of
perforated cardboard for her Sun-
day-school class, mittens for various
small relatives, and gayly colored
knit reins for the parsonage baby.

404

A CHRISTMAS TANGLE

"How well the presents have
come in," Mrs. Parker said, encour-
agingly. Mrs. Deacon Chester,
with an obstinacy born of weariness,
declared that she couldn't agree.
"Though it's all the thanks we can
expect," she said. "Coming here
and slaving all day for people who
won't even take the trouble to bring
things here. To my certain knowl-
edge three well-to-do families in this
church are keepin' back their pres-
ents for a family tree. I call it
downright rivalry of the church."

Mrs. Parker wisely refrained
from argument. "It's a nice night
for Christmas," she said.

"But terrible cold," returned Mrs.
Chester, adding presently, in a more
animated tone, "I've told the stage
driver to come right here with
whatever he brought for any of our
church people. If Henry sends you
a box this year you'll find it on the
tree."

Mrs. Parker hesitated. The chief
delight of her lonely Christmas was
the box from her nephew ; its ar-
rival an event to be attended with
all due ceremony, and its opening a
matter of much moment, only to be
satisfactorily accomplished in the
solitude of her own parlor with the
picture of Henry's mother smiling
down upon her from the wall.
"Well," she said presently, reflect-
ing that the box need not be opened
until she reached home, and inward-
ly hoping it would not be too heavy
to carry.

Half an hour after the noiseless
closing of the church door marked
Mrs. Parker's departure, there was
a sound of sleigh bells, and Eben
Friend, the stage driver, looking a

veritable Santa Claus in his fur coat
and cap, staggered in, laden with a
score of packages, large and small.
"I met Kriss over beyant," he ex-
plained noisily "and he asked me to
help him out, bein's he was over-
loaded. I'm in a terrible hurry my-
self. So if somebody'll just sign for
these quick, I'll leave 'em in your
care, Miss Chester."

The committee of ladies gathered
around the pile of packages. Sev-
eral of the smaller ones were hung
upon the tree, but over others they
hesitated, until Mrs. Chester made
a suggestion.

"We'll just have to open these,"
she said with decision. "They're
much too large to hang and things
make much better show on the tree
when you can see what they are."

There was a reckless snapping of
strings and tearing of wrappers,
and the Christmas trees blossomed
with sofa pillows, aprons, pictures
and books. There were many ex-
clamations and some passing from
hand to hand of much admired ob-
jects. If also there was some spec-
ulation and comment as to origin
and quality, it was hardly surpris-
ing in a village where each family
took a vivid interest in its neigh-
bors' affairs.

The church was crowded; the in-
fant class recited its verses with
the nonchalance of babyhood; two
bashful little girls warbled of the
"Christmas Star" in tones which
failed to reach the sixth pew from
the front, and the minister's son and
heir recited "The Night Before
Christmas" in a manner creditable
to the entire church. Then, after

A CHRISTMAS TANGLE

4o5

remarks by the pastor, the superin-
tendent and three of the deacons —
the fourth being unavoidably ab-
sent— the real event of the evening
commenced.

Mrs. Parker found herself the
pleased recipient of three handker-
chiefs, two white aprons, a glass
plate from her class of little girls
and a china vase. Her nephew's
present came last. And Mrs. Par-
ker could have wept tears of disap-
pointment when, instead of the se-
curely knotted package, bearing her
address in Henry's well-known
writing and decorated with the fas-
cinating red label of the express
company, she received a soft, heavy
shawl, with a card, "Mrs. Parker,
from Henry," in Mrs. Chester's
cramped hand.

Mrs. Parker assured herself that
it didn't matter. But a hurt feeling
lingered even while friends and
neighbors cast admiring glances
towards the gift, and whispered one
to another that Henry must be get-
ting forehanded. An uncomforta-
ble feeling that the gift was of Mrs.
Chester's bestowing rather than
Henry's possessed its recipient,
though she chided herself for being
so unreasonable. "You that always
prided yourself on not noticin'
slights and snubs, Elvira Parker,"
she thought scornfully.

After the services she made her
way unobserved to the wing pews,
and in a pile of rubbish found the
box in which the shawl had been
packed. There could be no mistake,
for a bit of the fringe had caught in
the cover, in its hasty opening.

Mrs. Parker spread out her' gifts
on the old-fashioned card table be-

neath Alvesta's picture. But Al-
vesta's blue eyes looked coldly down
upon them and her expression in-
dicated disapproval. She was ac-
customed to seeing the packages
opened. Mrs. Parker remembered,
as she sat before the fire, that she
didn't really need a new shawl.
Perhaps that was the reason she feit
so little pleasure in it. Then she
pictured Henry's care in selecting
it. Doubtless he and Mina had
gone out together to look for it.
Dear boy, how thoughtful of him
to remember her preference for
gray ! She rose and stood before the
oval mirror draping the shawl
about her shoulders. All at once
the coldness vanished and its warm
folds seemed to stand to her for
home and family ties. Henry was
all she had. The pictured face upon
the wall lighted with pleasure.
"Dear boy!" Mrs. Parker said fond-
ly as she folded the shawl away.

She went cheerfully to bed, re-
membering that Sophy Briggs was
coming to dine with her to-morrow,
—poor Sophy, who had been the
village beauty in her day and had
lived to see beauty, wealth, friends
and kindred drop away from her
one by one. She was a little tire-
some now; not poor or forlorn
enough to make her really interest-
ing— only a dull little body with a
keen remembrance of better days
and a fierce resentment of anything
like patronage. Mrs. Parker's last
thought before she dropped asleep
was, "I wish I dared offer Sophy
my last winter's shawl. I don't
need two."

She wished it more than ever
when she took her visitor's wraps

406

A CHRISTMAS TANGLE

in the sunny parlor next day, and
noticed how thin Sophy's short cape
was. She thought about it while
she basted the turkey — Mrs. Parker
knew turkey for two was an un-
necessary extravagance, but Sophy's
pride would suffer were she offered
a mere chicken on Christmas day —
and meditated upon it as she lis-
tened to the well-known story of
ophy's "coming out" party. By
and by she brought out the shawl
for her guest's inspection. "Isn't it
handsome?" exclaimed Sophy. A
sudden thought came to Mrs. Par-
ker. "I didn't need it," she said in-
differently. "I had a nice one. I
wish I could dispose of my other
some way."

"You've worn it a .year," re-
marked Sophy with the air of one
who in her day has been authority
upon the etiquette of shawls.

Clearly it was no use. Mrs. Par-
ker folded the shawl fondly ; how
little and pinched Sophy looked !
Her hostess wondered if she were
suitably clothed for winter. She
smoothed the shawl, laying her cheek
caressingly against its soft folds.
"I wish I could swap it for some-
thing I need more," she said at last.

Sophy looked mildly interested.
"I should think you could easy
enough," she said. "What would
you want to get instead?"

Mrs. Parker hesitated. After all
what had Sophy to spare? "I'd like
a cameo breastpin," she said with
sudden relief.

Sophy laughed. "If that's all,"
she said with a burst of generous
feeling. "I'll give you one and wel-
come. Ma's and grandma's and
Aunt Emily's all fell to me.",

Mrs. Parker drew herself up with
an air of offended pride. "I couldn't
accept anything so valuable," she
said. "If you'd be willing to ex-
change it for the shawl though — "

Sophy demurred. She didn't
know as she cared for a shawl her-
self. Capes were more stylish and
better suited to a young person.
And gray wasn't her color — she
much preferred brown. But after
long consideration during which
Mrs. Parker made many tactful
manoeuvres, the exchange was ef-
fected, and Sophy went down the
front steps in the wintry twilight
wrapped in Mrs. Parker's Christmas

gift.

Mrs. Parker surveyed with amuse-
ment the cameo breastpin for which
she could conceive no possible use.
For fifteen years she had worn no
jewelry save the mourning pin
which held her husband's hair.
"This one'll do for Mina some day,"
she decided at last.

The evening seemed lonely some
way. She almost wished she had
kept the shawl one more night until
Christmas was really gone. Pres-
ently she brought out the box in
which perhaps Henry's own hands
had packed the gift, wondering if
she couldn't make a workbox of it.
"I'd kind of like to have it round,"
she said, gently removing the tissue
paper lining. Then she gave a little
delighted laugh. For on the bottom
of the box lay a folded note. Henry
had written her a few lines.

There was a little search for her
glasses and a longer delay in light-
ing a lamp before she settled down
contentedly to read the note. It was
only a line after all, and the smile

A CHRISTMAS TANGLE

407

died from Mrs. Parker's face as she
read it. "A shawl for my dear
mother from her loving son, Willie."
Mrs. Parker sat feebly up in her
chair. "It's all at the door of that
meddling committee," she said.
Not spitefully or in anger but as if
some vent to her overwrought feel-
ings were necessary. It was so easy
now to see how it had happened in
the dimly lighted church, and amid
the confusion of opening many
packages at once. They had all
known of Henry's custom, and
"Mrs. Eliza Porter" might easily
be mistaken for "Mrs. Elvira Par-
ker."

Mrs. Parker laughed even in the
midst of her perplexity, and a glow
of pleasure warmed her heart as she
thought of Mrs. Porter. Poor, rich
Mrs. Porter whose money had pur-
chased her everything but happiness
and whose only son had drifted so
far away from her that it was no
secret in Oak Hill that his city ad-
dress was unknown to her. Mrs.
Parker had heard from Henry that
no man was more successful in busi-
ness than William Porter. His
name was in the front ranks of
philanthropic work and always to be
found upon subscription lists to
charitable institutions. But an old
trouble in the settlement of his

I father's estate had grown into a bar-
rier between his mother and him-

l self. Now, Mrs. Parker could
hardly wait until morning to carry
the peace offering to her lonely
neighbor. But a thrill of dismay
overcame her as she remembered
how her trade with Sophy had com-
plicated the matter. She could not
go to Sophy and demand the shawl.

What should she do? She brought
out her purse and with serious face
counted its contents. There were
twenty dollars — and the shawl could
not have cost less than fifteen. But
Mrs. Parker could see no other way.

Early next morning Mrs. Par-
ker's neighbors were surprised to
see her take the stage for Oakdale,
the flourishing village from whence
most of Oak Hill's supplies were
brought. At six in the evening a
light streaming from her sitting-
room windows announced her re-
turn. And a little later, under cover
of the friendly darkness, she made
her way to the little house where
Sophy Briggs lived alone.

"I don't want anything said about
it," Mrs. Parker explained in a most
confidential tone. "For like as not
'twould make hard feelings, among
the committee. But they mixed the
things up in opening and this is the.
shawl that was meant for me. The
other is Mis' Porter's. As like as
two peas you see, only mine is
brown. And would you mind
changing?"

"Did you ever?" exclaimed Sophy.

She brought out the gray shawl
a little reluctantly. An article de-
signed for the rich Mrs. Porter's
wear became somewhat enhanced in
value. "I read to-day that gray
was coming in and brown going
out," she said as she laid the two
side by side and critically compared
the fringes. "And it seems to me
the gray's thicker and softer. But
of course it's just as you say."

Mrs. Parker refrained from ex-
plaining that Sophy's declared pref-
erence had determined the color of
her shawl. "If you think it isn't

408

A CHRISTMAS TANGLE

worth the value of the pin," she sug-
gested at last. "I wouldn't mind
throwing in something — say a
pound of butter a week through the
cold weather."

Sophy thought that might do,
though she preferred creamery but-
ter, and had already trimmed up a
gray bonnet to match the shawl.
Time was when she didn't have to
scheme and bargain for a new gar-
ment but had anything she wanted.
There was a velvet pelisse — but
Mrs. Parker, packing the gray shawl
hastily into its box, took her de-
parture.

She toiled a little wearily up the
long hill to the Porter mansion, the
box hidden beneath her last year's
shawl. Mrs. Porter was at home —
sitting with folded hands in her ele-
gant parlor — but alone. She heard
the story with composure, and took
the 'box with the utmost noncha-
lance, the only emotion exhibited
being a cold indignation at the man-
ner in which the error had occurred.
"The action of the committee was
most impertinent," she declared,
opening the box as if a Christmas
gift from her son were a thing Lo
be expected. But Mrs. Parker re-
marked how the thin hands
trembled as they lifted the shawl
and noticed a tear that fell upon the
note blurring the signature. "I
mustn't stop a minute," she de-
clared, and slipped from the room
before Mrs. Porter could urge
her to remain, had she been so
minded.

Tired with her day's journey she
sank into a rocking chair in her own
sitting-room wondering if it all had
paid. Mrs. Porter had one shawl,

Sophy the other. She had not even
the satisfaction of their pleasure.
And for the first time in many years
Henry had sent her no Christmas
gift. Of course it was only natural.
Henry was a busy man . and his
growing family were more expen-
sive every year. He could not be
expected to spend thought and
money upon a country relative.
She hoped she wasn't growing silly
and sensitive like Sophy Briggs.

The Oak Hill Sewing Circle held
its annual meeting promptly on the
first day of the year. To delay
longer would have seemed to the j
ladies of Oak Hill like burdening
the new year with the responsibili-
ties of the old. This time the meet-
ing was with Mrs. Deacon Gould,
and a request for full attendance
given from the pulpit, in an auspi-
cious moment between the sermon
and the prayer, had been fully com
plied with. After the business of
the day was concluded and plans
for next year thoroughly discussed,
the members lingered for a social
hour, and Mrs. Gould with some
pride brought out her Christmas
gifts for their inspection. There
was a china dinner set, a new silk
dress, books, pictures and bric-a-
brac in plenty. Last of all Mrs.
Gould lifted from the centre table
a photograph album, bound in mo-
rocco with heavy silver clasps.

"This was my son's present," she
said proudly. ''He knew I'd beer,
wanting one and sent this from wa>l
out West. I knew in a minute 'twas
from him, though you folks thai
hung the presents didn't leave
scrap to identify it with."

A CHRISTMAS TANGLE

409

The album passed from hand to
hand amid subdued murmurs of ad-
miration. Last of all it came to
Mrs. Parker, sitting back from the
rest in the bay window. She opened
it a little apathetically. Christmas
gifts failed to interest her this year.
"The pictures came with it," ex-
plained Mrs. Gould for the twenti-
eth time. "Some of Willie's friends
of course. His minister's family I
presume."

Mrs. Parker drew nearer to the
window in the gathering dusk. She
felt a little dizzy and a mist blurred
before her eyes. When it cleared
she bent eagerly above the album.
Yes, it was Henry's face smiling up
at her — a little older and graver
than when she saw it last, but still
her boy with all the promise of boy-
hood fulfilled in the manly face.
The soft-eyed little woman on the
next page could be none other than
Mina. "I could picked her out
among a thousand for all I've never
seen her," Mrs. Parker said glee-
fully to herself. There were two
chubby boys — exact reproductions
of the youthful Henry — and a baby
girl with Alvesta's eyes.

The circle had dispersed and only

a few with wraps already donned
lingered about the lighted centre
table. Mrs. Porter, present for the
first time in many years at an Oak
Hill social function, fastened her
gray shawl across her breast with a
jewelled pin. "A present from my
son," she said smoothing the fringe
fondly.

Mrs. Parker gave a last loving
look at the pictured faces and closed
the album. "I sh'll never claim it,"
she assured herself as she laid it
fondly down upon the centre table.
"I ought to thought there was
other women in Oak Hill had Wil-
lies besides Mis' Porter. It serves
me right, but I don't know as I'd
change things if I could. Mis'
Gould's pleased, Sophy's comforta-
ble, and I haven't seen that look on
Mis' Porter's face since we was girls
together. As for me," she thought
with growing enthusiasm, draping
her last year's shawl cheerfully
about her, "I haven't got a regret.
I know now just how Mina 'n' the
children look, and Henry certainly
did well by me. That album
couldn't cost less than ten dollars —
not to mention the pictures. Dear
boy!" . i; :]

The Art of Letter Writing

By Zitella Cocke

IN the rapid progress of utilita-
rianism and expediency, so
characteristic of the present

age, is not letter writing, in its
highest sense, as rapidly becoming
a lost art ? Do not postal cards 'and
telegrams, telephones and typewrit-
ers, threaten extinction to the white-
winged messengers of love that fly
into our homes and cheer our
hearts? Can words glowing- with
filial love, or burning with the fire
of the grand passion, endure the in-
cisions of telegraphy, or be bound
to annotations in shorthand? Does
cheap postage depreciate the quality
of thought or felicity of expression?
Or has letter writing ceased to be
an accomplishment, and hence is
relegated to its place among the lost
arts? Have the gossip and chit-
chat of the daily papers supplanted
the "billets" which used to come
fresh from the agitated and emo-
tional pen of a sympathizing, con-
genial friend?

A learned Frenchman once* re-
marked to the writer of this article
that, in America, persons were rarely
taught chirography, — they took it
up in some fashion and did as well
as they could with it, — while Euro-
peans, particularly on the Conti-
nent, studied it as an art. One who
is familiar with the handwriting of
the French and Germans, and even
Italians and Spanish, will admit the

410

truth of this statement. Ordinarily,
their chirography is as clear and
precise as copperplate, and the
whole mechanical execution neat
and often elegant. Englishmen not
unfrequently rival their American
cousins in hieroglyphical and unde-
cipherable communications. It can
be safely said that the monstrous,
unsightly, Virginia fence sort of
handwriting so fashionable among
newly fledged lady graduates a few
years ago could never have passed
muster in France or Germany.

If the famous cookery book re-
cipes make the catching of the hare
so essential in its specific detail, we
may argue, with as much reason,
that a handwriting which can be
read with comparative comfort is of
prime importance in the writing of
letters, nor is legibility incompati-
ble with grace and beauty of pen-
manship.

A man's letters form a part of
himself, and this is especially true
of literary men and women, — so
true that a curious public has
learned to demand this revelation
of a man's inner life, and biogra-
phers lose no time in gratifying this
desire, and men and women, who
have done anything for which the
world would not willingly forget
them, have in their turn learned
what painful exposures and miscon-
structions of their private letters are

THE ART OF LETTER WRITING

411

likely to ensue after they have
passed away from earth. Carlyle
and George Eliot dreaded this un-
scrupulous ransacking of private
desks for the gratification of the pub-
lic's mor'bid taste. How Mr. and
Mrs. Carlyle's letters have been read
between the lines, as Mr. Froude sug-
gested they should be, is too well
known to need criticism. . It may,
however, be only just to those
worthy persons to say here that
there was nothing in the letters to
convince the public of the couple's
unhappiness, — it was the close ad-
herence to Mr. Froude's advice, —
the reading between the lines, — the ex-
ercise of a pre-judgment which had
already rendered its verdict against
them, which induced the credulous
public to accept Mr. Froude's deci-
sion. A mob is easily led by one
dominant spirit, and Mr. Froude has
much to answer for in thus creating
an opinion which has no real right
to existence. It was said that
Byron, on the other shore, was
gnashing his teeth in anticipation of
Mrs. Stowe's arrival because of her
unwarrantable attack upon him, and
the Carlyles probably gave Mr.
Froude a reception equally enthu-
siastic.

With how much of weal and woe
are letters associated, these chroni-
clers of the past and present, from
the letter which the stricken King
of Judea spread before the Altar
of the Temple ; the letters in which
the great apostle to the Gentiles ex-
pounded the doctrines of the Chris-
tian religion ; the Isidorian 'Decre-
tals, which to this day are envel-
oped in a veil of mystery; the
"Lettres de Cachet," which made

human life and happiness a mere
plaything of caprice and tyranny ;
the letters of Junius, whose iron
mask still defies the world's pene-
tration, down to the worldly-wise,
brilliant epistles of the Earl of
Chesterfield, or the natural, glowing
pictures of social life, and spontane-
ous outbursts of maternal love
which flow so gracefully from the
pen of Madame de Sevigne. Lord
Bacon says : "Letters, such as are
written from wise men, are of all
the words of men the best" ; while
Lord Chesterfield insists that the
purpose of letters should be fa-
miliar conversations between absent
friends. What a contribution to lit-
erature, then, do letters become
when they faithfully reflect the man-
ners, customs and sentiments of the
age ! Biography and history have
new light thrown upon their ob-
scure pages, and characters whose
public acts have exhibited them to
posterity as severe and uncom-
promising, undergo wonderful trans-
mutation when seen in the mirror
of private correspondence. Calvin,
whose intemperate zeal rendered
him a monster in the eyes of those
who knew his intolerance only, is
far less formidable when seen in his
private letters, which often explain
away, so to speak, the hard and in-
consistent theories which he upheld
with such tenacity. Erasmus, the
erudite scholar, whose want of ac-
tion invited criticisms and even cen-
sure, during his life, so graphically
paints in his letters the extremes
and follies of his time, that a lar e
proportion of mankind, at the pres-
ent day, is willing to accept him as
a wiser, reformer than Luther.

412

THE ART OF LETTER WRITING

Much of the warm appreciation of
Luther's genuineness and earnest-
ness is due as well to his letters as
to his public acts. Scholars could
ill afford to do without the letters
of Joseph Scaliger and Casaubon;
and Anselm's three books of letters,
if destroyed, would leave much of
the history of England in the time
of William the Conqueror and
William Rufus unrevealed. The
two Bishops of Chartres illustrated
the eleventh century by their letters
and the private correspondence of
Gerbert is the key which opens
many of the secrets of Italian his-
tory. John of Salisbury and Peter
of Blois give us, in their. letters, an
accurate account of the reign of
Henry II, and how many readers
have enjoyed the beautiful pictures
of the reigns of George II and
George III, so carefully and grace-
fully portrayed by the pens of the
Grenville family ! But of all letters
which have aided the search for
knowledge, none hold so conspicu-
ous a place as the famous Paston
Letters. "These letters," says Hal-
lam, "are a weighty testament to the
progressive conditions of society,
and come in as a precious link in
the chain of the moral history of
England, which they alone supply
in this period." Without them we
know that many incidents of the
eventful period of the Wars of the
Roses, and the reigns of Henry VI
and Edward IV, as well as the time
of Richard III, would have remained
far outside the reach of human dis-
covery.

Previous to the thirteenth cen-
tury, letters were written in Latin.
Upon the advent of William the

Conqueror, the French language
became the fashionable medium of
communication, and held undimin-
ished and undisputed sway until the
reign of Edward III.

One of the. earliest epistolary ef-
forts on the part of a woman is
found in a letter written by Lady
Pelham to her husband in 1399. It
is in English and its quaintness, as
well as its womanly sentiment and
wifely deference, makes it a fair ex-
ponent of a period not wholly eman-
cipated from the power of feudalism.

The immense variety of subjects
offered to the letter writer makes
the correspondence of any artist or
any literary man or woman a sort
of tributary stream to the broad
river of literature, — indeed, they
might be called pearls and diamonds
from the great mine of thought.
They are fragmentary, no doubt, but
like the beautiful arabesques of
Moorish architecture, they serve as
indices to the progress and cult of
the age in which they were written.
Of what inestimable value now is
the correspondence of Goethe and
Schiller ! — the philosophical views,
the genuine love for truth and untir-
ing search for it, the speculations,
the true poetic enthusiasm — all en-
chain the attention of the student of
poetry or philosophy, and yet these
men were writing for their own
amusement and edification, thoughts
which have become the heritage of
the world.

The correspondence of Pope and
Swift will always possess a literary
interest in spite of Pope's affecta-
tions, and Swift's unhappy temper.
Even the rugged and hypercritical
Carlyle found Horace Walpole very

THE ART OF LETTER WRITING

413

far from being a dunce or a mere
man of fashion, as he once believed
him to be, after he had read that
gentleman's famous letters ; and so
much has this brilliant narrator of
incidents and events found favor
with the general reader that few
now remain unacquainted with
Strawberry Hill, and history itself
is compelled to acknowledge a large
debt to the Walpole Letters.

Thomas Gray shows himself to
be a poet quite as much in his letters
as in his famous Elegy- — so ex-
quisite and true are his descriptions
of nature; so full of genuine poetic
feeling that we see in his epistles the
disjecta membra of the poet, and
realize that his letters well deserve
the title of "Georgics in Prose."

The letters of Sir James Mcintosh
go far to prove the learning and
lofty purpose, the breadth of char-
acter and high moral dignity of that
noble man. Can we ever forget the
letters of Sir Walter Raleigh? On
the night 'before his execution he
wrote to his wife a letter which
must always remain an imperishable
record of true knighthood.

Since the trial of Dreyfus, the
world is not left uninformed as to
the significance of handwriting, or
the important part it plays in the
destiny of men and nations; and if
a man is to be judged, as some in-
sist, by his handwriting, and with
mitigating and varying circum-
stances, it may be an index to char-
acter, surely the letter itself ought
to reveal something of his true
nature. The individual letter might
be compared to a shell of lustrous
iridescence, singing the sweetest of
songs to the ear which listens to it.

A Persian proverb says a letter is
half a meeting. It is a greeting of
the soul, a spiritual gift; we have
not our friend's hand but we have
his heart. Seneca was accustomed
to thank his friend Lucilius for his
letters and to say, "Thus you do all
you can to be in my company: the
moment I read your letters, I see
Lucilius before me."

We are prone to regard authors
as beings apart from other men, but
when we read their letters human
kinship asserts itself at once, for
then is revealed the hidden inmost
life of the man ; in them we read
not so much what is meant for the
public eye, as what touches our
hearts or our sympathies. We
could hardly know so much of the
real heart of Burns if we had not
read his letters to Mrs. Dunlop, and
how our hearts thrill with ten-
der compassion for the suffering
Cowper, when we read his letters
to the Unwins ! Petrarch's poetry
possesses a new charm after we
have read his delightful letters, and
Charles Lamb's correspondence is
company for the dreariest winter
that ever separated friends or
rendered pleasures inaccessible.
Human frailties as well as human
virtues reflect themselves in letters,
and as men are very often any-
thing but heroes to the valet who
attends them, so, alas, letters not
un frequently remove our gods from
their pedestals to the plane of or-
dinary and selfish men. Three of
the most illustrious Roman writers,
Cicero, Ovid and Seneca, exiled
from the glory of a city which was
the mistress of the world, displayed
in their letters such querulousness,

414

THE ART OF LETTER WRITING

impatience and want of fortitude as
to make these productions contrast
strangely with the wealth of
thought and wisdom which their
other writings have bequeathed to
posterity. Shenstone's brilliant and
epigrammatic sayings constituted
the charm of the society in which
he moved, but his letters betray a
mind ill at ease, morose and exact-
ing. Who does not feel an added
respect for the noble Sir Thomas
Wyatt, on reading his letters to his
son, or who would not feel it an
honor to be called the friend of Sir
Philip Sidney, having once read the
manly letters of this "warbler of
poetic praise"?

Of historic letters, one of the
most pathetic is that written by
Anne Boleyn to her royal husband
at the time of her imprisonment. It
was found among the papers of
Cromwell and is claimed to be in-
disputably authentic. The simple
elegance and graceful diction carry
such a ring of honesty and genuine
merit, such a tone of sincerity, that
our commiseration is excited more
than ever for the unhappy woman,
notwithstanding the thick and
skilfully wrought whitewashing
which Mr. Froude has given her
Bluebeard of a husband.

Horace Walpole declared that
women were universally better let-
ter writers than men. This may be
due to the fact that, as good Dean
Hook says, women excel in the wis-
dom of the heart. The ancient
Gauls attributed to woman an addi-
tional sense — the divine sense. It
may be that the sensitivity of
woman enables her to catch and
portray those delicate shades of

emotion, those subtle influences
and impalpable suggestions which
pervade society and domestic life,
the portrayal of which enters so
largely into letter writing. Vol-
taire pronounced Madame de
Sevigne unrivalled "pour confer let
bagatelles avec grace" Hers was the-
genius not only of the woman, but
of the French woman. It is possible
that she could not have accom-
plished just what she did do in any
other language than "the French.
Its wondrous flexibility as well as
its accuracy makes it an unsur-
passable vehicle for delicate bons
mots, and half the attractiveness of
her letters is lost when they are
pressed through the less piquant
and elastic English language. Yet
her letters are history and biog-
raphy. Les Rochers, a country
house but a few hours' drive from
Vitre, a town in Brittany, is still
shown to travellers as the place
whence the famous epistles ema-
nated ; her escritoire is still on ex-
hibition, her bed with its white and
red hangings, falling to pieces from
age, is still looked upon with curious
and almost reverential wonder, and
officious guides show with pride the
orange trees which they insist she
planted.

It by no means follows that a
good talker is a good letter writer.
Dr. Johnson thought Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu the most delight-
ful and brilliant of talkers — compre-
hensive and full of thought — but her
letters, interesting as they are from
her various surroundings and asso-
ciations, are far below the standard
to be expected from such a woman.

The endearing elegance of wo-

THE ART OF LETTER WRITING

415

man's friendship is conspicuous in
the letters of Mrs. Thrale and
Madame D'Arblay to Dr. Johnson,
as well as in the beautiful letters
of the Countess of Hertford ; but for
wonderful mastery of language, in-
tellectual discernment, and exqui-
site poetic taste withal, let one read
the letters of that writer whom Mrs.
Browning addresses as "large-brained
woman and large-hearted man" —
George Sand. As Pepys's Diary
has thrown light upon the history
of the reign of Charles II, so George
Sand's letters, written from the very
heart of the country, show the true
condition of France in her last
struggle with Prussia.

Yet no letters have excited the
world's curiosity or criticism more
than love letters. How to write a
proper love letter still remains an
unanswered question, and some
have chosen to end the controversy
by wholesale denuniciation of these
solaces to loving hearts. Douglas
Jerrold declares the author of any
amatory epistle to be a fool who
hangs himself on his own .pothooks,
but a lover who would accept such
advice and prefer to remain on the
line of "non-committal," deserves to
reap the reward of his cowardice by
gaining nothing. "To write a good
love letter," says Rousseau, "you
ought to begin without knowing
what you mean to say and finish
without knowing what you have
written." According to that formu-
la, the mail must carry every day
thousands of epistles which Jean
Jacques would pronounce' very
good. It might, however, be sus-
pected, with some justice, that he is
as bad an authority on love letters

as upon some other subjects. Tony
Weller certainly evinced much sa-
gacity in discovering that the merit
of a love letter lay in a brevity
which induced the fair recipient to
wish it had been longer. In other
words, the risk of incurring "love's
sad satiety," as Shelley expresses it,
must be avoided ; but jf the success
of a jest lies in the ear of him who
hears it, surely the success of a love
letter lies in the heart of the one
who receives it. The love letters
of poor Keats — painful repinings of
an unsatisfied heart and a body dis-
tressed by disease — prove, alas, that
they who wear their sorrows too
openly will find that daws are sure
to peck at them. Perhaps no reader
of these sad letters ever regarded
them with less appreciation than did
the heartless flirt to whom ■ they
were addressed. Like all true and
noble souls, he loved an ideal and
invested the shameless creature to
whom he wrote such impassioned
letters with all the excellences of
his ideal; indeed, it is the good and
noble who do that. Good and
pure and lovely women too often
invest a worthless profligate and
fortune-hunter with the good which
ihey love and long for, and when
at last they are forced to learn the
truth, has disappointment a keener
or deeper anguish? Such sorrow
befell this noble soul, and it does
seem that this prying, prurient age
has transcended every right and
privilege in permitting the ghouls
and vampires of the press to make
merchandise of Keats's love letters.
It is like trading in the heart's
blood.

Can any one who has ever stood

416

THE ART OF LETTER WRITING

by the graves of Abelard and Heloise
forget the letters of these immor-
tal lovers? Whoso knows Swift
knows also the letters of Stella and
Vanessa, and the love letters of the
fair Queen of Scots afford a clearer
insight into the motives and actions
of this wonderful woman than the
most elaborate arguments of the
historian. In the Ambrosian Libra-
ry of Milan are the love letters
which passed between Lucretia
Borgia and Concha di Bembo; side
by side they lie with a lock of the
famous lady's hair. Byron pored
over these letters with peculiar in-
terest, and perhaps drew from them
an inspiration for the inditing of his
own missives. If such anachro-
nisms were possible it would seem a
just retribution for his many iniqui-
ties if the fair Lucretia had gotten
him in her toils, and employed some
of her accomplishments upon him.

Sir Richard Steele put to shame
all modern improvements in transit
and delivery, for it is said that
when absent from his lady love he
wrote to her every hour. Could
lovers of the twentieth century do
more?

Our own colonial days furnish
some interesting specimens of let-
ter writing. Jefferson's and Madi-
son's letters are deservedly cele-
brated. The letters of Madison be-
long to archives of state, and are
the highest authority upon such
points as pertain to the action of dif-
ferent states, as well as the Union, and
indeed constitute a history of the in-

fant Republic. Mrs. Dolly Madison's
letters, edited by her great-niece, are
delightful reading, full of information
concerning the important events of her
time, and evincing good feeling and
broad patriotism.

Among the elderly ladies of Vir-
ginia, as well as of New England and
New York, letter writing was es-
teemed an accomplishment. These
women were not mere gossips, and
affairs of state and topics of national
interest all find a place in these cher-
ished epistles. A letter from a gen-
tleman in Virginia to a friend in Bal-
timore, at whose house his daughter
was visiting, redolent of the elegance
and good breeding which belonged to
the cavaliers of that time, requested
his friend's guardianship for his "fair
daughter," and especially desired him
to see that she "was introduced into
good Federal society." A lady of
eighty years, residing near Richmond,
a lineal descendant of the Churchills
of England, now writes a letter whose
exquisite accuracy and finish of execu-
tion make it look like print, and whose
style renders it a fair literary produc-
tion. In letter writing as well as in
manners, it might not be amiss to imi-
tate our grandmothers. It has already
been said that conversation is becom-
ing a lost art. People talk nowadays
as much as ever, but will not take
time to converse, and the question
with which we started out repeats
itself. In this day of bustle and hurry
and nervous attrition, are we not for-
getting the elegant art of letter writ-
ing?

How John Eastlake was Cured

By A. L. Sykes

THE Eastlakes were as plen-
tiful as the hills in the old
New Hampshire town of
Millville, and Mrs. John
Eastlake, who was commonly called
"Mrs. John," to distinguish her from
"Mrs. William" and "Mrs. Jere-
miah," was acknowledged by all to
be a failure.

"She ain't got no grit," her neigh-
bors declared, although she toiled
from early morn to dewy eve, and
often through the long evenings,
cheerful and uncomplaining. Her
most venial sin in the eyes of curious
Millvillians was that she was some-
what reticent, or as they termed it,
"offish."

John Eastlake was a little lean
man with shallow eyes, a sparse
stubble of sandy hair on his head,
and a corresponding stubble de-
pending from that which for sweet
charity's sake must be called a chin.
The youngest of a family of sturdy
boys, he had always been "picked
on" at home, and folks said when he
married a stout rosy woman from a
neighboring town, who was three
times his size and weight, that "she'd
jest stomp him down," and the more
sympathetic townspeople shook
their heads sadly and sighed : "Well,
poor John ain't never had no show,
and I d'no' as he ever will.'*

But John, contrary to all predic-

tions, proved the old adage to be
true; the worm turned, and so vio-
lently, that the one-time meek little
man became as choleric and domi-
neering as a three-tailed Bashaw,
and ruled as with a rod of iron his
patient Grizel of a wife. Every
spare penny went into the bank, but
as the bank book grew fat there
were no more comforts and no more
hours of rest in the bare yellow
house that the Eastlakes called
"home."

Haying season was at hand; the
great meadows stretched out to-
ward the blue distant hills, ready for
the scythe, and the soft airs blowing
across their fragrant burdens could
not have been sweeter if they had
come from Paradise. Mrs. John sat
on the step at the back door paring
great rosy apples from the bright
tin in her lap, the very picture of
peace and content, but little waves
of anxiety and perplexity crossed
her face from time to time, and her
hands trembled as she let the bright
ribbons of apple skin fall into the
pan. The click of the front gate
came to her ear, and the airy rustle
of skirts told who the visitor was
before she made her appearance
round the corner of the house. Miss
Wetherburn, nearing sixty, but spry
as a kitten, came on like a schooner
with all sail set, her ruffled lavender

417

418

HOW JOHN EASTLAKE WAS CURED

gown bristling with starch, and a
pink ribbon at the throat, forming a
study in color altogether startling.

"I thought I'd find you here," she
said, seating herself daintily on a
lower step ; "always a peelin' or a
parin' or a cookin' for that dreadful
man."

The sound from within of a rock-
ing chair violently pursuing its
vocation hereupon assailed their
ears.

"Company?" queried Miss Weth-
erburn eagerly.

"It's John," said Mrs. John in a
low and tragic whisper. Then na-
ture would have its way, the tale
must be told, and she beckoned the
visitor with enticing forefinger. To-
gether they walked down the little
dahlia-bordered path and sat in the
shade of the hay barn, whose cav-
ernous darkness yawned for the
fragrant loads. "Yes," Mrs. John
continued, "he's been so ever sence
the last cow died. There he sot and
nursed the poor critter like it was
his daughter, and give it ginger tea
and boneset and peppermint and
every other kind of mint, and turned
it every hour ; but for all his laborin'
it died jest like the rest, and now he
won't even eat with me, but sets in
the room and rocks and rocks, and
when he ain't a-rockin' he's a gazin'
out of the window."

"Don't he eat nothin'?" asked Miss
Wetherburn, her contempt for men
visibly lessened for the moment.

"Yes, he eats when I don't ask
him. I jest fix him up somethin'
nice on the tray and put it on the
table by him, and ef I go out real
quick and shut the door, when I
come back it's gone ; but ef I ask

him what he wants, he jest groans
and rocks and says nothin'."

"Humph ! I guess there ain't
much ailin' him ef he can eat," said
the visitor, contempt returning; "all
men folks think of is their stomachs,
anyway. I jest wish some of them
hed lied me. I'd learn 'em."

"All the hay's to be got in," pur-
sued Mrs. John, her speech flowing
like a river; "the hands don't do
nothin' as they ought to when he
ain't there, and I can't do much my-
self. I get so nervous seems 's if
I'd fly hearing him rock and rock.
He rocks or sets and stares and
never says a word all the evenin',
and when he thinks I'm asleep he
crawls into bed and lays and groans
half the night. Ef he would only
say what ailed him I could stand it,
but I can't bear this much longer.'"

"It's them cows," said Miss Weth-
erburn with conviction ; "cows and
bank books. I jest wouldn't stand
it. He ought to hev hed me." And
then like a bee that had sucked all
the honey from a flower, she shook
out her rattling skirts and prepared
to flit away to the next of her morn-
ing calls.

She came rushing back after she
had reached the gate, and meeting
Mrs. John by the back door whis-
pered in such sibilant accents that
the words buzzed like a nest of
angry hornets : "I tell you what to
do ; you must equalize his circula-
tion. He's got too much blood in
his head or else he ain't got enough.
I'll send my Mammoth Perfected
Bath Cabinet in the mornin' ; jest
get him into that onct and sweat
him out well, and you'll never have
no more trouble. Finest thing in

HOW JOHN EASTLAKE WAS CURED

419

the world to equalize the circula-
tion, the circular says, and cures
everything."

Mrs. John scanned her visitor's
face with anxious doubting eyes.
"I d'no' as I could get him — " she
began, but a particularly loud groan
from within made her almost drop
her pan of apples.

"Land sakes !" twittered Miss
Wetherburn, and fluttered down the
walk, pausing behind the lilac bush
to shake a vindictive fist at the win-
dow and mutter, "He ought to hev
hed me."

Next morning the Mammoth Per-
fected Steam Bath Cabinet was
trundled up to the door by a boy
with a wheelbarrow, who, after
many explorations in mysterious
pockets, produced a violet scented
pink note.

"Don't ask him to use it," it read,
"or he won't never do it. Just let It
set and set, and by and by he'll want
to get in, and when he's once in he's
cured. I know the critters ; they're
just like balky horses, the more you
drive them the less they'll go."

John Eastlake sat in the room, un-
shorn and dishevelled, gazing hour
after hour into the fields where his
fine herd of cows was wont to
graze. He knew that the hay needed
him, and called himself a fool a
score of times a day, but utter paral-
ysis of the will was his ; that which
had been would not had come to be
could not.

The cabinet was brought in and
put in a conspicuous place, and to
an unaccustomed eye its polished
cover might have concealed the
works of a sewing machine or even
a music box. John Eastlake stared

at it in amazement and wrath for a
moment, then pulled his chair about
and rocked and groaned all day
without deigning another glance.

Miss Wetherburn .fluttered in to-
ward evening.

"How is he?" she hissed.

"Jest the same," said Mrs. John ;
"rockin' and groanin', and groanin'
and rockin', and won't even look at
the concern."

"Give him rope enough and he'll
hang himself," said Miss Wether-
burn, inappropriately, considering
the vaunted merits of her loan.

Mr. Eastlake on the next day
turned his chair and rocked and
groaned afresh, pausing at times to
survey the wooden case with an ag-
gressive eye.

On the third day Mrs. John, at her
ironing in the kitchen, heard in an
interval between rocking and groan-
ing an unaccustomed sound, has-
tened to the door of the sitting-room
and beheld her spouse standing in
guilty proximity to the box, which
had disclosed none of its mysteries,
surveying the portrait of his de-
ceased grandfather, which frowned
.dismally from the wall above. She
retreated hastily and immediately
heard him rocking with renewed
vigor.

That evening as he rocked and she
mended, he asked abruptly, "What
is that gol-darned thing anyway?"

"That, John," she answered with
dignity, "is a bath cabinet. It makes
sick people well, and — and — equal-
izes the circulation."

"Humph !" he retorted, and pro-
ceeded to his bed.

Next day he asked gruffly, "How
do you do it?"

420

HOW JOHN EASTLAKE WAS CURED

"Do what, John?" she asked, hop-
ing and fearing.

"Use that thing?"

"Oh," she said eagerly, "you have
a nice little lamp burnin' alcohol un-
der a chair, and you wrap in a blan-
ket and set in there — that little
round hole is for your head to come
through — and you stay there until
— until your circulation is equal-
ized."

"Think p'r'aps I'll take one," he
growled.

And when she said tremblingly,
"Oh, John, do you think you'd bet-
ter?" he vouchsafed her no reply,
but stalked solemnly from the
room.

Mrs. John hurried into the kitch-
en and with hands that shook
threw open the lids of the red-hot
stove, and set back the irons, for
ironing day was as nothing in the
scale when a circulation might per-
chance be equalized. When she
had lighted the little lamp and
placed it under a chair within the
cabinet after many trials at un-
latching the door that permitted the
patient to enter, Mr. Eastlake
emerged draped in a scarlet blanket
that almost extinguished him and
trailed behind him on the floor.

Mrs. John felt like an execution-
er as she ushered him in and seated
him on the chair, but when so
placed it was found that the top of
the cabinet came almost to his eyes,
and he was obliged to accept from
the hands of his wife a fat "Family
Physician" to bring him to the
proper level.

Mrs. John, now that he was really
in, fastened the hasp with unneces-
sary vigor, and awaited develop-

ments. As the gentle heat filled the
cabinet John Eastlake's lean little
soul and body warmed to it ; his face
relaxed and he almost smiled, and
as the moments passed he grew
more and more scarlet until one
could not distinguish where scrawny
neck ended and scarlet blanket
began.

At length great drops of perspira-
tion fell, and a look of anxiety over-
spread his face.

"Whew!" he said, though still
loath to address his wife, "whew,
whew, whew!"

Mrs. John had draped her best
log-cabin bedquilt about the cabinet
to prevent any stray zephyr from
entering, and was engaged in pin-
ning the long ends together with a
large pin.

"I've got to get out of here pretty
quick," he gasped, "or I'll be melted
away. I can jest feel myself a
goin'."

"Oh, no," she rejoined, "not yet.
You must stay at least half an hour.
'Melia Wetherburn said half an hour
was none too long."

" 'Melia Wetherburn !" he roared,
"did she send this infernal thing?
No wonder I'm bein' tortured to
death. Lemme out! Take that
quilt off!"

Mrs. John, frightened into submis-
sion, sought in vain for the head of
the pin, or helplessly tried to un-
fasten the hasp through the folds
of the quilt.

"Thunder and lightning, woman,
do you want to murder me?"
shouted he. "Get that door open, or
I'll have to kick the whole thing

over.

. "No,

no, John, remember the

HOW JOHN EASTLAKE WAS CURHD

421

lamp," quavered she, and sought
with trembling fingers to subdue the
obsteperous fastening.

He was purple now; his wet hair
looked like the quills of an exceed-
ingly fretful porcupine, and water
rained from his face.

"Let me try," he cried shrilly; but
there was no opening save the one
already occupied by his head, and as
he battered at the door from within,
the "Family Physician" slipped from
the chair and John Eastlake disap-
peared from view, to reappear in-
stantly, panting and purple, wear-
ing the expression of one who had
been snatched from the jaws of
death.

In his sudden descent and ascent
the alcohol lamp had tipped and
was blazing on the floor. "Jumping
Jehosophat !" he howled as the little
flame licked his foot, and thereupon
rose and rushed madly about the
room wearing a bath-cabinet ulster
and a trailing skirt of red. Mean-
while the alcohol lamp had wrought
its worst upon a wonderful rag rug
which represented countless hours
of work on the part of Mrs. John,
and had burned a goodly piece from
the log-cabin bedquilt.

Mr. Eastlake, by means of a series
of contortions which might have
succeeded in equalizing the' circula-
tion of an ossified man, had disar-
rayed himself of his wooden upper
garment, and stood wrathful and
awful in his red blanket.

"Confound you, and confound

that Wetherburn woman, and con-
found that infernal box!" he said
with deliberation and cold emphasis
worthy of the most horrible of
curses.

Again the old adage of the worm
proved itself true.

"Don't you confound another
thing, John Eastlake," she said, "or
I'll go, bag and baggage, out of this
house. See what you've done !
You've burned up my rag rug that
took me all winter to make; you've
spoiled the only carpet I've got in
the world, and you've burnt my best
log-cabin quilt that was made out of
the pieces of all my dresses and all
my sister's dresses and can't never
be replaced. You done enough that
time without confoundin' anybody,
and now I should advise you to get
your clothes on and not stand there
ravin' like a red Injun."

He turned without a word and
shut the door upon her, and came
forth in half an hour washed and
shaven and dressed in his haying
clothes. She watched him pass out
of the house, through the barnyard,
and on toward the field where the
men were cutting the long grass.
Then she bustled about and pre-
pared his favorite dish, and as it
began to steam over the fire she sank
half laughing, half crying into the
long-suffering rocking chair and
said to herself: — "Well, 'Melia
Wetherburn was right, after all.
It's equalized his circulation, and I
guess mine's just begun."

422

Clouds from the West

Charles H. Davis's Landscapes

By William Howe Dowries

THERE are certain charac-
teristics which, with rare
exceptions, are common
to all landscape painters
worthy of the name, and Charles H.
Davis is a typical example of the
class. They are men for whom the
allurements of society have little or
no charm; they are emphatically not
gregarious; and, though often en-
dowed with social gifts of the most
brilliant nature, they know them-
selves too well to be willing to waste
their energies on side issues. It is
a truism to say that art is a jealous
mistress. To give up many things
for her sake, things that seem desir-

able and important to the majority
of men, is no real sacrifice, however,
to the artist, but the only way. He
must, at all costs, live his own life —
free, unhampered, and, for a good
part of the time, solitary. It is easy
to fancy how well peopled, how
busy, how gay is this solitude. For
of all the joys that leave no sting,
what can be compared with the joy
of artistic creative activity? This is
the "labor we delight in," which
"physics pain." So far from being
related to dull and grinding toil, the
keen zest with which it is done is one
of the most vital conditions of its
success. We do not need to know

423

Photograph by George E. Tingley

Charles H. Davis

an artist personally ; he lives in his
works ; what manner of man he is
may be understood sufficiently by
and through them. So, in whatever
form art comes to us, its central in-
terest and significance are autobio-
graphical and subjective. Each sin-
cere and loving effort is but a revela-
tion of the man behind the work.
It is thus that we come to read and
construe the evidence, which may
always be relied on. The points it
tells us are all the more interesting
in proportion to the unconsciousness
424

with which the witness reveals his
spiritual nature.

T remember vividly the first exhi-
bition of landscapes by Charles H.
Davis, at the Doll & Richards gal-
lery in Boston, in the spring of 1883.
He was then studying in France,
and his pictures were of the woods
and plains in the neighborhood of
Fontainebleau. They were simple in
composition, well constructed and
solidly drawn, with transparent at-
mosphere, and the method was
direct and frank. There were two

425

Woodland Brook

canvases which had been in the
Salons of 1881 and 1882 respectively,
"La Plaine" and "Early Autumn."
The trees, rocks, fallen leaves, moss
and other objects in the foreground
were skilfully painted ; the planes
were well related ; and all the pic-
tures had the negative merit of mod-
esty, conscientious naturalness, an
absence of straining for effect. The
artist was struggling with facts and
construction, as the basis of good
work, though his purpose then —
and increasingly since then — was an
expression not bounded by realism.
He was at that time twenty-seven
years old, and was just beginning to
discover himself. The development
of his art since 1883 has been
steady and uninterrupted. To-day
he is one of the most eminent of
living American landscape painters.
The gradual growth of an artist's

426

individuality is a most interesting
study, and the opportunity offered
by a series of nearly a score of ex-
hibitions of Davis's works has been
a distinct privilege. In 1884 he
sent from France a collection of no
less than seventy-three paintings,
many of which were little more
than studies, made with the same
earnest and sober spirit of natural-
ism, though "The Edge of the Vil-
lage," from the Salon of 1883,— a
grove of trees, with a deep carpet of
dried and withered grass covering
the ground, beyond which were
seen the roofs of several cottages,
and a sky of pale blue and gray,
faintly tinged with rose-color near
the horizon, — possessed pictorial
qualities of a more positive order.
There was a foreshadowing here of
the delicacy, unity, and meditative
sobriety of feeling, which were, in

The Golden Oak

later fulfilment, to blend into that
choice and original vein of rural
poetry which has become the domi-
nating quality of the mature man's
art.

During the remaining six years of
his sojourn in France, he continued
to send home annually many land-
scapes which illustrated satisfacto:
rily the continuous development of
his aesthetic aims and tendencies.
In the exhibitions of 1885, 1887,
1888 and 1890, both in New York
and Boston, his motives were still
for the most part very simple, al-
most severe, and a strain of ex-
tremely sober sentiment permeated
many of them. "The Deepening
Shadows," now in the Corcoran
Gallery, Washington; "Village in
the East"; "The Village on the
Plain"; "Evening," now 'in the
Metropolitan Museum, New York;

"Abandoned," with many less im-
portant but not less interesting can-
vases, belong to this period. These
works served, by their intrinsic
merits, to bring the artist into favor-
able attention ; his success and
reputation were firmly established
by them on a substantial basis, so
that when he came to the United
States in 1890 it was with a certain
degree of prestige which had been
honestly won and which has not
proved by any means ephemeral.
On the contrary, the artist, instead
of resting on his laurels, threw him-
self with renewed zeal into the all-
absorbing labors of his vocation,
ever modest, studious, single-
minded and loyal to. his ideals.

It is, I think, a not uncommon
trait of artists of mark to develop
their finest qualities comparatively
late. Their early work, however in-

427

428

CHARLES H. DAVIS'S LANDSCAPES

teresting, however complete, cannot
be expected to show forth freely the
whole intent and purport of their
minds. It is, in a sense, prepara-
tory, not final. A too easy success
early in life is perilous; one looks
askance upon the youthful prodigy;
and in art there are too many in-
stances of the rocket and the stick.
How many young artists, just out
of school, soar with a soul-stirring
sound and sudden blaze of light
towards the zenith, terminate their
dazzling flight with a burst of col-
ored bombs, "flakes of crimson" or
"emerald rain," and then goi out in
darkness, nevermore' to be seen or
heard of ! I would not undervalue
impulsiveness as a force in art. It

has its place and function. But
your men of staying power, your se-
rious men, with their unconquera-
ble tenacity of purpose, their dog-
gedness, are far more impressive;
and it is to this class that Davis be-
longs. They do not wear out their
force by rushing; they move with
relative deliberation, but never
stop ; and as they move they seem
to be accumulating strength from
day to day, so that no obstacle can
stay their progress. . Few qualities
impress me so much as this grim
constancy. Combined with mother-
wit, it carries men so far !

Davis's landscapes do not belong
to the melodramatic order of pic-
tures. He is no, Salvator Rosa, no

The Sunlit Oak

The Shortest Day

Turner, no Delacroix. Very many
of his paintings deal with the coun-
try in its soberest and severest
mood, with its grays and browns of
autumn and winter, its naked trees,
its bleak uplands, its frost and wind,
skies dull and sad. Subtle, re-
served, almost melancholy, with a
touch of homeliness, these canvases
have no vivid contrasts of light and
shadow, no sharp accents, no vio-
lence, no appeal to the liking for
novelty. If they err at all, it is in
the direction of an excessive reti-
cence and sobriety. These remarks
apply more especially to the pic-
tures painted prior to 1892! They
demanded for full appreciation a

taste on the part of the observer for
the severe and serene phases of
landscape art ; and their appeal was
to the imagination which found its
stimulus in the dreamy and dull-
hued aspects of the country under
clouded skies, at twilight, or after
dark, in seasons of gloom and chill,
when nature is not in a smiling
mood.

The beauty of these works, then,
was not of a sort that would make
its appeal to a large number of peo-
ple. It had in it too much measure
and moderation. It was, too, some-
what dull and sad. But, on the
other hand, it aroused in the imagi-
nation of that multitudinous tribe

429

430

CHARLES H. DAVIS'S LANDSCAPES

which is descended from Mark Tap-
ley an unspeakably delectable im-
pression of melancholy and lone-
someness. There was that painting
of "Evening," with the silhouette of
a half-ruined castle outlined against
the bluish-green sky ; the light
seemed slowly to wane as one
looked at it ; it was not cheerful,
but it was a work of distinct roman-
tic power. "Abandoned" was of a
like sentimental vein ; it was dig-
nified, impressive, and dreamy, full
of a vague legendary suggestive-
ness ; it made one remember one's
first evening at boarding-school
rather too well. But it is due to the
artist to add that these works had
in them the beauty of feeling which
has ever been the mark of his art;
their sentiment was genuine, not

factitious ; and it was embodied in a
virile and painter-like form.

The tendency towards a more
luminous style became noticeable
after 1894. Until that time the
artist had adhered to the extreme
moderation and sobriety of color
which have been noted here. His
work had been, indeed, far from
dull in spirit, but its style had been,
as we have seen, wanting in ani-
mation, sparkle and gayety. The
matter was there, the sentiment for
natural beauty, the artistic intui-
tion, but its outer garments were of
Quaker hue. The time-spirit had
not been without its influence, how-
ever, and it is perfectly just to give
due credit to the modern sun-wor-
shippers, the outdoor painters, the
luminarists, for the very evident in-

■nm
A New England Village Street

CHARLES H. DAVIS'S LANDSCAPES

431

crease of light and brilliancy in his
work. That the love of light in
landscape is the chief distinguishing
characteristic of the art in our day
is a familiar fact ; and that the abil-
ity to suggest sunlight goes beyond
that of the painters of past times is
a claim which we hear often made.
Without entering upon this vexed
question, and without asking
whether the typical modern land-
scape painter, in gaining ground in
one direction, has not sacrificed
some qualities at least as desirable
and important as those he has ob-
tained, it may be conceded that the
brightness and cheerfulness of the
open-air landscape are welcome and
acceptable to all healthy tastes, and
that they are not necessarily incom-

patible with a genuine poetical sen-
timent and a refined interpretation
of natural phenomena. This brings
us to the great point in favor of
Davis's manner of using modern
methods. It is that he uses these
methods, and that he does not allow
them to use him. He makes of
them his means to an end, not an
end in itself; his servants, not his
masters. He has modified his style
by the clarification of his palette,
by the use of brilliant oppositions
of tones, by an augmented boldness
and breadth, but he has not imi-
tated any one in touch, texture or
brush wrork.

No school can claim him but the
school of nature. He needed a little
more audacity ; he has gained it.

'Each in his narrow cell forever laid
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."

A Lonely Road

His color needed a little addi-
tional liveliness and life ; it has
it. He has more decorative quality,
more freedom ; but he has not lost
his old-time beauty of perception,
his innate delicacy of feeling. All
means are good that lead to the de-
sired end. The painter who can be
classified definitely is likely to be
running in a groove ; and Davis can-
not be thus classified ; die is his own
man. He has not become the re-
markable landscape painter that he
is by travelling over any royal road.
His art has had a steady, healthy,
natural growth. It is by keeping
himself so closely in contact with
nature that he has been able to de-
velop his talent and to build up the
orderly and organic structure of his
art, without mannerisms, retaining
that freshness of vision, that candid
ingenuousness of mind, which, in a
432

painter, mean so much that is de-
lightful and spontaneous. He is on
the most intimate and kindly rela-
tions with nature, and few modern
painters have been permitted to pen-
etrate further into its arcana.

From the first Davis has been
a great student of the sky and of
its inexhaustible pageantry. His
drawing and modelling of the forms
of clouds, his feeling for their tex-
tures and movements, his evident
enjoyment of their vaporous grada-
tions and subtilties of tone under
shifting lights, are constantly mani-
fested in his works. Nearly twenty
years ago he exhibited a small up-
right landscape of a village in
France, with low gray cottages and
a quaint church tower rising over
them ; in the pale blue sky floated
one great, lovely white cloud, — an
object of almost perfect beauty, —

Summer- Moonlight

which seemed likely to dissolve,
scatter its vapors, and fade from
view ; it was an unforgettable vision
of cool, delicate and ethereal loveli-
ness, worthy of Corot in his best
moments. In the sky of the
large landscape entitled "Summer
Clouds," which was at the Pan-
American Exposition in Buffalo,
1901, we find all the picturesque and
mobile elements that are needed to
give life and character to the scene.
These clouds have the aspect of
incessant changefulness and unhur-
rying action ; they seem to detach
themselves, to attach themselves
again, now massing their vapors,
now opening out; they build and
unbuild their whimsical heaps of
snowy and fragile textures, now
hiding and now revealing the re-
moter deeps of blue.

Charles H. Davis was born in
Amesbury, Mass., in 1856. His
father, who was a native of that
town, taught school there for more
than thirty years. From early boy-
hood young Davis had been accus-
tomed to drawing, and, though he
never saw a painting worthy of the
slightest consideration until he was
eighteen years of age, he often ex-
pressed the wish to become a
painter. His father, an excellent
mathematician, had but a slight ap-
preciation of art work, but his
mother was exceedingly fond of all
pertaining to it. She saw the Duke
of Montpensier's collection when it
was exhibited at the Boston Athe-
naeum in 1874, and insisted on her
son going to Boston to see it, too.
The Spanish pictures made no great
impression upon him, but some
French landscapes of the Fontaine -

433

Uplands, East Wind

bleau school which were on exhibi-
tion in other rooms at the Athe-
naeum at the same time appealed
strongly to him, and a group of
drawings by Millet, though they
seemed queer, lingered long in his
memory. At that time he was
working in a carriage shop at
Amesbury, where he went to serve
an apprenticeship as a body-maker
a short time before he was fifteen
years old. This was much against
the wishes of his parents, who, how-
ever, finally consented, thinking
that he would soon get enough of
it, and would be willing to return to
his studies in the high school ; but
he stuck to it, and, after all, it was
a valuable experience for him. At
odd times he painted landscapes,
making his first attempts with com-

434

mon house paints, but as soon as his
first pay-day came he bought some
tube paints. Presently, when he
was nearly of age, during a period
of dull times, when he was out of
work, he devoted himself so assid-
uously to painting, that his father,
who was not satisfied with the
trade he had chosen, suggested
that he should take up painting as
a profession, and offered to defray
his expenses for a course of study
in Boston. This suggestion filled
the boy with delight. He took some
of his crude productions to Boston,
and, in fear and trembling, knocked
at the doors of some of the studios
in the old Studio Building in Tre-
mont Street, where he received
scant encouragement. For a few
days things looked dark to him, but

By the Roadside

after a while he adopted the sug-
gestion of one of the painters, and
entered one of the free evening
drawing schools. There he ven-
tured to speak to his teacher, Leslie
Miller, concerning his purposes and
hopes, and Mr. Miller in a very
kindly way told him of the art
school just then beginning at the
Museum of Fine Arts, and advised
him to present himself there as a
student. He did so the next dav,
and was at once enrolled as a pupil.
Before this time Davis's mother
had died, so that one of the greatest
satisfactions she could have had
was denied her. He remained in
the Museum school three years, and
then came the longing to study
abroad. His father, with two other

sons to provide for, could not see
his way to aid Charles to do this,
but, most fortunately, from an ab-
solutely unlooked-for source, the
means were provided.

A retired, carriage manufacturer
of Amesbury, J. R. Huntington,
who did not know the young man
personally, but had heard of his ef-
forts and ambition, met him in the
street one day, and, speaking to him
for the first time, then and there of-
fered to defray his expenses in Paris
for two years. Mr. Huntington
was better than his word, for, with
the utmost generosity, requesting
no return other than an occasional
picture whenever the young man
might see fit to send one, he made
the way clear for his protege until

435

436

CHARLES H. DAVIS'S LANDSCAPES

the returns from his work began to
come in, years after, placing him
upon an independent basis.

It was in 1880 that Davis went to
France. He entered the Julian
Academy in Paris, and was placed
under the instruction of Lefebvre
and Boulanger. But his intention
from the first had been to devote
himself to landscape, and he natu-
rally gravitated to Barbizon. Going
there for a few days in January,
1 88 1, his first glimpse of the haunts
of Millet and Rousseau made the
stuffy atelier in Paris seem very
distasteful to him, and, after a half-
hearted attempt to resume the work
of the school, he was swept away
by an irresistible impulse to return
to that wonderful forest of Fon-
tainebleau. There he painted in
the open, and the first result was a
little picture which was promptly
accepted by the Salon jury of 1881.

To make a long story short, he ex-
hibited in the Salon for ten consecu-
tive years, the entire time of his so-
journ in France. He brought his
family to this country in 1890, and
has been working here ever since
then, living at Mystic, 'Conn. Per-
haps it ought to be said, in connec-
tion with his school work in Paris,
that he returned to the academy for
short intervals of the two years fol-
lowing his first season there; but
his heart was not in that work, but
always in the country, the little gray
villages, the noble forest and the
vast plains which were the sub-
jects of his paintings from 1880 to
1890.

He has never had any instruction
in his landscape work, but simply
took up his abode in the country
and pegged away at his vocation
throughout the four seasons of the
year ; and that has been his custom

An Old Corner

CHARLES H. DAVIS'S LANDSCAPES

437

ever since he began serious work.
He has always avoided the localities
frequented by painters, finding his
own fields of congenial work, and
enjoying the society of a few inti-
mate friends, though often quite
isolated. It has always been his
habit to see more of nature than of
art, a habit which has had much to
do with the development of his in-
dividuality.

Honors have not been wanting.
He received the Prize Fund gold
medal of the American Art Associa-
tion in 1886, and in the following
year one of his pictures took the
$2,000 prize and became the prop-
erty of the Union League Club of
New York. Then came an honora-
ble mention at the Salon of 1887 for
a picture called "The Last Rays."
Next came a silver medal at the
Paris Exposition of 1889, which
made the artist hors concours at the
Salon. In 1890 the $500 Potter
Palmer prize was awarded to him
for the best landscape at the Chi-
cago Institute exhibition ; and at
about the same time a gold medal
was awarded to him at the Mechan-
ics' Fair in Boston ; from the same
source he has had also a silver
medal. A grand gold medal was
awarded to him at Atlanta; medals
from the World's Fair at Chicago,
the Pan-American Exposition at
Buffalo, and the last Paris Interna-
tional Exposition were added to the
list; and in 1901 he received the
$300 prize for the best landscape
("Summer Clouds") at the Penn-

sylvania Academy in Philadelphia.
He is an associate of the National
Academy, a member of the Society
of American Artists, an artist mem-
ber of the Lotos Club, New York,
and vice-president of the Copley
Society of Boston. He is repre-
sented in the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York, by a picture
called "Evening" ; in the permanent
collection of the Pennsylvania
Academy, Philadelphia, by "The
Brook" ; in the Corcoran Gallery of
Art, Washington, by "The Deepen-
ing Shadows," a work which, on the
occasion of its appearance at the
National Academy exhibition in
New York, was so, much admired by
Inness and Wyant, who were on
the hanging committee, that they
tried (in vain) to have it hung in
the chief place of honor. This pic-
ture was bought by Thomas B.
Clarke, with three others by Davis,
and was purchased by the Corcoran
Gallery at the Clarke sale. Davis is
also represented in the Chicago Art
Institute, and in public collections
at Omaha and Hartford.

Much of his best work is owned
in or near Boston. His first really
ambitious effort and fairly large
canvas, his second Salon picture,
which he named "La Plaine," was
bought by a Boston lady, in whose
home it still hangs. One of nis
very best pictures, called "A Win-
ter Evening," is owned by the
well-known Washington collector,
Thomas Waggaman, who recently
loaned it to the Corcoran Gallery.

A Praver

By Marco Fuller

OH, God ! Thou great far-seeing One,
Teach us to see
That worldly failure sometimes means success ;
That pain is sent but to refine and bless ;
That good can come of yesterday's distress;
Teach us to see.

Oh, God ! Thou great All-wise and Good !

Teach us to know,
Not fame, the measure of divinest powers,
But life lived truly through unnumbered hours.
To-morrow may not come ; to-day is ours.

Teach us to know.

Oh, God ! Thou great Inspiring One !

Teach us to strive.
To persevere, though dark the path we tread,
Content to be by right and duty led,
With faith that we shall find the light ahead.

Teach us to strive.

Oh, God ! Thou of Divinest Life !

Teach us to live.
What though our life-work great or small may be,
Grant us some spark of thy divinity,
That we may make a soul's sweet symphony.

Teach us to live.

438

The Ship that Saw a Ghost

By Frank Norris

VERY much of this story
must remain untold, for the
reason that if it were defi-
nitely known what busi-
ness I had aboard the tramp steam-
freighter Giants, three hundred
miles off the South American coast
on a certain summer's day some
few years ago, I would very likely
be obliged to answer a great many
personal and direct questions put
by fussy and impertinent experts in
maritime law, who are paid to be
inquisitive. Also, I would get
"Ally Bazan," Strokher and Har-
denberg into trouble.

Suppose, on that certain sum-
mer's day, you had asked of Lloyd's
agency where the Glarus was, and
what was her destination and cargo.
You would have been told that she
was twenty days out from' Callao,
bound north to San Francisco in
ballast; that she had been spoken
by the bark Medea and the steamer
Benevento; that she .was reported
to have blown out a cylinder head,
but being manageable, was pro-
ceeding on her way under sail.

That is what Lloyd's would have
answered.

If yo,u know something of the
ways of ships and what is expected
of them, you will understand that
the Glarus to be some half a dozen
hundred miles south of where
Lloyd's would have her, and to

be still going south, under full
steam, was a scandal that would
have made her brothers and sis-
ters ostracize her finally and
forever.

And that is curious, too. Hamans
may indulge in vagaries innumera-
ble, and may go far afield in the
way of lying; but a ship may not
so much as quibble without sus-
picion. The least lapse of "regular-
ity," the least difficulty in squaring
. performance with intuition, and be-
hold she is on the black list and
her captain, owners, officers, agents
and consignors, and even supercar-
goes are asked to explain.

And the Glarus was already on
the black list. From the beginning
her stars had been malign. As the
Breda, she had first lost her reputa-
■ tion, seduced into filibustering es-
capade down the South American
coasts, where in the end a plain-
clothes United States detective —
that is to say a revenue cutter —
arrested her off Buenos Ayres and
brought her home, a prodigal
daughter, besmirched and dis-
graced.

After that she was in some dread-
ful blackbirding business in a far
quarter of the South Pacific; and
after that — her name changed
finally to the Glarus — poached seals
for a syndicate of Dutchmen who
lived in Tacoma, and who after-

439

440

THE SHIP THAT SAW A GHOST

wards built a clubhouse out of what
she earned.

And after that we got her.

We got her, I say, through
Ryder's South Pacific Exploitation
Company. The "president" had
picked out a lovely, lively little deal
for Hardenberg, Strokher and Ally
Bazan (the Three Black Crows),
which he swore would make them
"independent rich" the rest of their
respective lives. It is a promising
deal (B. 300 it is on Ryder's map),
and if you want to know more about
it you may write to ask Ryder what
B. 300 is. If he chooses to tell you
that is his affair.

For B. 300 — let us confess it — is,
as Hardenberg puts it, as crooked
as a dog's hind leg. It is as risky
as barratry. If you pull it off
you may — after paying Ryder
his share — divide sixty-five, or pos-
sibly sixty-seven, thousand dollars
betwixt you and your associates.
If you fail, and you are perilously
like to fail, you will be sure to have
a man or two of your companions
shot, maybe yourself obliged to pis-
tol certain people, and in the end
fetch up at Tahiti, prisoner in a
French patrol boat.

Observe that B. 300 is spoken of
as still open. It is so, for the rea-
son that the Three Black Crows did
not pull it off. It still stands
marked up in red ink on the map
that hangs over Ryder's desk in the
San Francisco office; and any one
can have a chance at it who will
meet Cyrus Ryder's terms. Only
he can't get the Glarus for the at-
tempt.

For the trip to the island after B.
300 was the last occasion on which

the Glarus will smell blue water or
taste the trades. She will never
clear again. She is lumber.

And yet the Giants on this very
blessed day of 1902 is riding to her
buoys off Sausalito in San Francis-
co bay, complete in every detail
(bar a broken propeller shaft), not
a rope missing, not a screw loose,
not a plank started — a perfectly
equipped steam-freighter.

But you may go along the Front
in San Francisco from Fisherman's
Wharf to, the China steamships'
docks and shake your dollars under
the seamen's noses, and if you so
much as whisper Glarus they will
edge suddenly off and look at you
with scared suspicion, arid then, as
like as not, walk away without an-
other word. No pilot will take the
Glarus out ; no captain will navigate
her; no stoker will feed her fires;
no sailor will walk her decks. The
Glarus is suspect. She has seen a
ghost.

5jC ^ % >fc %■ %

It happened on our voyage to the
island after this same B. 300. We
had stood well off from shore for
day after day, and Hardenberg had
shaped our course so far from the
track of navigation that since the
Benevento had hulled down and van-
ished over the horizon, no stitch of
canvas nor smudge of smoke had
we seen. We had passed the equa-
tor long since, and would fetch a
long circuit to the sout'ard, and bear
up against the island by a circuit-
ous route. This to avoid being
spoken. It was tremendously es-
sential that the Glarus should not.
be spo,ken. I suppose, no doubt,
that it was the knowledge of our

THE SHIP THAT SAW A GHOST

441

isolation that impressed me with the
dreadful remoteness of our position.
Certainly the sea in itself looks no
different at a thousand than at a
hundred miles from shore. But a.^
day after day I came out on deck,
at noon, after ascertaining our posi-
tion on the chart (a mere pin point
in a reach of empty paper), the
sight of the ocean weighed down
upon me with an infinitely great
awesomeness — and I was no new
hand to the high seas even then.

But at such times the Giants
seemed to me to be threading a
loneliness, beyond all words and be-
yond all conception desolate. Even
in more populous waters, when no
sail notches the line of the horizon,
the propinquity of one's kind is
nevertheless a thing understood,
and, to an unappreciated degree,
comforting. . Here, however, I knew
we were out, far out in the desert.
Never a keel for years upon years
before us had parted these waters,
never a sail had bellied to these
winds. Perfunctorily, day in and
day out we turned our eyes through
long habit towards the horizons.
But we knew, before the look, that
the searching would be bootless.
Forever and forever, under the piti-
less sun and cold blue sky stretched
the indigo of the ocean floor. The
ether between the planets can be no
less empty, no less void. I never,
till that moment, could have so
much as conceived the imagination
of such loneliness, such utter stag-
nant abomination of desolation. In
an open boat, bereft of comrades, I
should have gone mad in ' thirty
minutes.

I remember to have approximated

the impression of such empty im-
mensity only once before, in my
younger days, when I lay on my
back on a treeless, bushless moun-
tain side, and stared up into the sky
for the better part of an hour. You
probably know the trick. If you
do not, you must understand that
if you look up at the blue long
enough, steadily enough, the flat-
ness of the thing begins little by
little to expand, to give here and
there ; and the eye travels on and
on and up and up, till at length
(well for you that it lasts but the
fraction of a second), you all at once
see space. You generally stop
there and cry out, and — your hands
over your eyes — are only too glad
to grovel close to the good old solid
earth again. Just as I, so often on
that short voyage, was glad to
wrench my eyes away from that hor-
rid vacancy, to fasten them upon our
sailless masts and stack, or to lay
my grip upon the sooty smudged
taffrail of the only thing that stood
between me and the Outer Dark.

For we had come at last to that
region of the Great Seas where no
ship goes, the silent sea of Cole-
ridge and the Ancient One, the
unplumbed, untracked, uncharted
Dreadfulness, primordial, hushed,
and we were as much alone as a
grain of star dust' whirling in the
empty space beyond Uranus and the
ken of the greater telescopes.

So the Giants plodded and churned
her way onward. Every day and
all day the same pale blue sky and
unwinking sun bent over that mov-
ing speck. Every day and all day
the same black-blue water-world,
untouched by any known wind,

442

THE SHIP THAT SAW A GHOST

smooth as a slab of syenite, color-
ful as an opal, stretched out and
around and beyond and before
and behind us, forever, illimitable,
empty. Every day the smoke of our
fires veiled the streaked whiteness
of our wake. Every day Harden-
berg (our skipper) at noon pricked
a pin hole in the chart that hung in
the wheel house, and that showed
we were so much farther into the
wilderness. Every day the world
of men, of civilization, of newspa-
pers, policemen and street railways
receded, and we steamed on alone,
lost and forgotten in that silent sea.

"Jolly lot o' room to turn raoun.d
in," observed Ally Bazan, the colo-
nial, "withaout steppin' on y'r neigh-
bor's toes."

"We're clean, clean out o' the
track of navigation," Hardenberg
told him. "An' a blessed good thing
for us, too. Nobody ever comes
down into these waters. Ye couldn't
pick no course here. Everything
leads to nowhere."

"Might as well be in a bally bal-
loon," said Strokher.

I shall not tell of the nature of
the venture on which the Glarus was
bound, further than to say it was
not legitimate. It had to do with
an ill thing done over two centuries
ago. There was money in the ven-
ture, but it was to be gained by a
violation of metes and bounds which
are better left intact.

The island toward which we were
heading is associated in the minds
of men with a Horror. A ship had
called there once, two hundred years
in advance of the Glarus — a ship not
much unlike the crank high-prowed
caravel of Hudson, and her company

had landed, and having accom-
plished the evil they had set out to
do, made shift to sail away. And
then, just after the palms of the
island had sunk from sight below
the water's edge, the unspeakable
had happened. The Death that was
not Death had arisen from out the
sea and stood before the ship and
over it; and the blight of the thing
lay along the decks like mould, and
the ship sweated in the terror of
that which is yet without a name.
Twenty men died in the first week,
all but six in the second. These
six, with the shadow of * insanity
upon them, made out to launch a
boat, returned to the island and died
there, after leaving a record of what
had happened.

The six left the ship exactly as
she was, sails all set, lanterns all lit;
left her in the shadow of the Death
that was not Death. The wind
made at the time, they said, and as
they bent to their oars, she sailed
after them, for all the world like a
thing refusing to abandon them or
be herself abandoned, till the wind
died down. Then they left her be-
hind, and she stood there, becalmed,
and watched them go. She was
never heard of again.

Or was she — well, that's as may
be.

But the main point of the whole
affair, to my notion, has always
been this. The ship was the last
friend of those six poor wretches
who made back for the island with
their poor chests of plunder. She
was their guardian, as it .were;
would have defended and befriended
them to the last; and also we, the
Three Black Crows and myself, had

THE SHIP THAT SAW A GHOST

443

no right under heaven, nor before
the law of men, to come prying and
peeping into this business — into this
affair of the dead and buried past.
There was sacrilege in it. We were
no better than body snatchers.

5J< 5fC >J< 'K *fc *fc

When I heard the others com-
plaining of the loneliness of our
surroundings, I said nothing at first.
I was no sailor man and I was on
board only by tolerance. But I
looked again at the maddening
sameness of the horizon — the same
vacant, void horizon that we had
seen now for sixteen days on end —
and felt in my wits and in my nerves
that same formless rebellion and
protest such as comes when the
same note is reiterated over and
over again.

It may seem a little thing that the
mere fact of meeting with no other
ship should have ground down the
edge of the spirit. But let the in-
credulous— bound upon such a haz-
ard as ours — sail straight into noth-
ingness for sixteen days on end,
seeing nothing but the sun, hearing
nothing but the thresh of his own
screw, and then put the question.

And yet, of all things, we desired
no company. Stealth was our one
! great aim. But I think there were
moments — toward the last— when
the Three Crows would have wel-
comed even a cruiser.

Besides, there was more cause for
depression, after all, than mere iso-
lation.

On the seventh day Hardenberg
and I were forward by the cathead,
adjusting the grain with some half-
formed intent of spearing the por-
poises that of late had begun to ap-

pear under our bows, and Harden-
berg had been computing the
number of days we were yet to run.

"We are some five hundred odd
miles off that island by now," he
said, "and she's doing her thirteen
knots handsome. All's well so far —
but do you know, I'd just as soon
raise that point o' land as soon as
convenient."

"How so?" said I, bending on the
line. "Expect some weather?"

"Mr. Dixon," said he, giving me a
curious glance, "the sea is a queer
proposition, put it any ways. I've
been a seafarin' man since I was as
big as a minute, and I know the sea,
and what's more, the Feel o' the Sea,
Now, look out yonder. Nothin',
hey? Nothin' but the same ol' sky
line we've watched all the way out.
The glass is as steady as a steeple,
and this ol' hooker, I reckon, is as
sound as the day she went off the
ways. But just the same, if I were
to home now, a-foolin' about
Gloucester way in my little dough-
dish — d'ye know what? I'd put into
port. I sure would. Because why?
Because I got the Feel o' the Sea,
Mr. Dixon, I got the Feel o' the
Sea."

I had heard old skippers say
something of this before, and I cited
to Hardenberg the experience of a
skipper captain I once knew who
had turned turtle in a calm Sea off
Trincomalee. I asked him what
this Feel of the Sea was warning
him against just now (for on the
high sea any premonition is a pre-
monition of evil, not of good). But
he was not explicit.

"I don't know," he answered
moodily, and as if in great perplexi-

444

THE SHIP THAT SAW A GHOST

ty, coiling the rope as he spoke, — "I
don't know. There's some blame
thing or other close to us, I'll bet a
hat. I don't know the name of it,
Mr. Dixon, and I don't know the
game of it, but there's a big Bird in
the air, just out of sight som'eres,
and," he suddenly exclaimed,
smacking his knee and leaning for-
ward, "I — don't — like — it — one —
dam'— bit."

The same thing came up in our
talk in the cabin that night, after the
dinner was taken off, and we settled
down to tobacco. Only, at this
time, Hardenberg was on duty on
the bridge. It was Ally Bazan who
spoke instead.

"Seems to me," he hazarded, "as
haow they's somethin' or other
a-goin' to bump up, pretty blyme.
soon. I shouldn't be surprised,
naow, y'know, if we piled her up on
some bally uncharted reef along o'
to-night and went strite daown afore
we'd had a bloomin' charnce to s'y
'So long, gen'lemen all.' '

He laughed as he spoke, but when
just at that moment a pan clattered
in the galley, he jumped suddenly
with an oath, and looked hard about
the cabin.

Then Strokher confessed to a
sense of distress also. He'd been
having it since day before yesterday,
it seemed.

"And I put it to you the glass is
lovely," he said, "so it's no blow. I
guess," he continued, "-we're all a bit
seedy and ship sore."

And whether or not this talk-
worked upon my own nerves, or
whether in very truth the Feel of the
Sea had found me also, I do not
know ; but I do know that after din-

ner that night, just before going to
bed, a queer sense of apprehension
came upon me, and that when I had
come to my stateroom, after my
turn upon deck, I became furiously
angry with nobody in particular, be-
cause I could not at once find the
matches. But here was a differ-
ence. The other men had been
merely vaguely uncomfortable.

I could put a name to my uneasi-
ness. I felt that we were being
watched.

})« * * * * *

It was a strange ship's company
we made after that. I speak only
of the Crows and myself. We car-
ried a scant crew of stokers, and
there was also a chief engineer. But
we saw so little of him that he did
not count. The Crows and I gloomed
on the quarter-deck from dawn to
dark, silent, irritable, working upon
each other's nerves till the creak of
a block would make a man jump like
cold steel laid to his flesh. We
quarrelled over absolute nothings,
glowered at each other for half a
word, and each one of us, at differ-
ent times, was at some pains to de-
clare that never in the course of his
career had he been associated with
such a disagreeable trio of brutes.
Yet we were always together, and
sought each other's company with
painful insistence.

Only once were we all agreed, and
that was when the cook, a China-
man, spoiled a certain batch of bis-
cuits. Unanimously we fell foul of
the creature with as much vocifera-
tion as fishwives till he fled the
cabin in actual fear of mishandling,
leaving us suddenly seized with
noisy hilarity — for the first time in

THE SHIP THAT SAW A GHOST

445

a week. Hardenberg proposed a
round of drinks from our single re-
maining case of beer. We stood up
and formed an elk's chain and then
drained our glasses to each other's
health with profound seriousness.

That same evening, I remember,
we all sat on the quarter-deck till
late and — oddly enough — related
each one his life's history up to
date ; and then went down to the
cabin for a game of euchre before
turning in.

We had left Strokher on the
bridge — it was his watch — and had
forgotten all about him in the inter-
est of the game, when — I suppose it
was about one in the morning — I
heard him whistle long and shrill.
I laid down my cards and said :
"Hark !"

In the silence that followed we
heard at first only the muffled lope
of our engines, the cadenced snort-
ing of the exhaust, and the ticking
of Hardenberg's big watch in his
waistcoat that he had hung by the
armhole to the back of his chair.
Then from the bridge, above our
deck, prolonged, intoned — a wailing'
cry in the night — came Strokher's
voice: "Sail oh-h-h."

And the cards fell from our hands,
and, like men turned to stone, we
sat looking at each other across the
soiled red cloth for what seemed an
immeasurably long minute.

Then stumbling and swearing, in
a hysteria of hurry, we gained the
deck.

There was a moon, very low and
reddish, but no wind. The sea be-
yond the taffrail was as smooth as
lava, and so still that the swells
from the cutwater of the Glarus did

not break as they rolled away from
the bows.

I remember that I stood staring
and blinking at the empty ocean —
where the moonlight lay like a
painted stripe reaching to the hori-
zon— stupid and frowning, till Har-
denberg, who had gone on ahead,
cried:

"Not here — on the bridge !"

We joined Strokher, and as I came
up the others were asking:

"Where? Where?"

And there, before he had pointed,
I saw — we all of us saw. And I
heard Hardenberg's teeth come to-
gether like a spring trap, while Ally
Bazan ducked as though to a blow,
muttering :

"Gord'a mercy, what nyme do ye
put to a ship like that?"

And after that no one spoke for a
long minute, and we stood there,
moveless blacW shadows, huddled
together for the sake of the blessed
elbow touch that means so incalcula-
bly much, looking off over our pott
quarter.

For the ship that we saw there —
oh, she was not a half mile distant —
was unlike any ship known to pres-
ent day construction.

She was short and high-pooped,
and her stern, which was turned a
little towards us, we could see, was
set with curious windows, not un-
like a house. And on either side of
this stern were two great iron cres-
sets, such as once were used to burn
signal .flares in. She had three
masts, with mighty yards swung
'thwart ship, but bare of all sails
save a few rotting streamers. Here
and there about her a tangled mass
of rigging drooped and sagged.

446

THE SHIP THAT SAW A GHOST

And there she lay, in the red eye
of the setting moon, in that solitary
ocean, shadowy, antique, forlorn, a
thing the most abandoned, the most
sinister I ever remember to have
seen.

Then Strokher began to explain
volubly and with many repetitions :

"A derelict, of course. I was
asleep ; yes, I was asleep. -Gross
neglect of duty. I say I was asleep
— on watch. And we worked up
to her. When I woke, why — you
see, when I woke, there she was,"
he gave a weak little laugh, "and —
and now, why, there she is, you see.
I turned around and saw her sudden
like — when I woke up, that is."

He laughed again, and as he
laughed, the engines far below our
feet gave a sudden hiccough. Some-
thing crashed and struck the ship's
sides till we lurched as we stood.
There was a shriek of steam, a
shout — and then silence.

The noise of the machinery
ceased; the Glarus slid through the
still water, moving only by her own
decreasing momentum.

Hardenberg sang, "Stand by!"
and called down the tube to the en-
gine room.

"What's up?"

I was standing close enough to
him to hear the answer in a small
faint voice :

"Shaft gone, sir."

"Broke?"

"Yes, sir."

Hardenberg faced about.

"Come below. We must talk."

I do not think any of us cast a
glance at the Other Ship again.
Certainly I kept my eyes away from
her. But as we started down the

companionway I laid my hand on
Strokher's shoulder. The rest were
ahead. I looked him straight be-
tween the eyes as I asked :

"Were you asleep? Is that why
you saw her so suddenly?"

It is now five years since I asked
the question. I am still waiting for
Strokher's answer.

Well, our shaft was broken. That
was flat. We went down into the
engine room and saw the jagged
fracture that was the symbol of our
broken hopes. And in the course of
the next five minutes' conversation
with the chief, we found that, as we
had not provided against such a con-
tingency, there was to be no mend-
ing of it. We said nothing about
the mishap coinciding with the ap-
pearance of the Other Ship. But I
know we did not consider the break
with any degree of surprise after a
few moments.

We came up from the engine
room and sat down to the cabin
table.

"Now what?" said Hardenberg,
by way of beginning.

Nobody answered at first.

It was by now three in the morn-
ing. I recall it all perfectly. The
ports opposite where I sat were
open and I could see. The moon
was. all but full set. The dawn was
coming up with a copper murkiness
over the edge of the world. All the
stars were yet out. The sea, for all
the red moon and copper dawn, was
gray, and there, less than half a mile
away, still lay our consort. I could
see her through the portholes with
each slow careening of the Glarus.

"I vote for the island," cried Ally
Bazan, "shaft or no shaft. We rigs

THE SHIP THAT SAW A GHOST

447

a bit o' syle, y'know — " and there-
at the discussion began.

For upwards of two hours it
raged, with loud words and shaken
forefingers, and great noisy bang-
ings of the table, and how it would
have ended I do not know, but at
last — it was then maybe five in the
morning — the lookout passed word
down to the cabin :

"Will you come on deck, gentle-
men ?" It was the mate who spoke,
and the man was shaken — I could
see that — to the very vitals of him.
We started and stared at one an-
other, and I watched little Ally
Bazan go slowly white to the lips.
And even then no word of the Ship,
except as it might be this from Har-
denberg :

"What is it? Good God Almighty,
I'm no coward, but this thing is get-
ting one too many for me."

Then without further speech he
went on deck.

The air was cool. The sun was
not yet up. It was that strange,
queer mid-period between dark and
dawn, when the night is over and
the day not yet come, just the gray
that is neither light nor dark. The
dim dead blink as of the refracted
light from extinct worlds.

We stood at the rail. We did not
speak. We stood watching. Tt was
so still that the drip of steam from
some loosened pipe far below was
plainly audible, and it sounded in
that lifeless, silent grayness, like —
God knows what — a death tick.

"You see," said the mate, speak-
ing just above a whisper, "there's
no mistake about it. She is moving
— this way."

"Oh, a current, of course," Strok-

her tried to say cheerfully, "sets her
toward us."

Would the morning never come?

Ally Bazan — his parents were
Catholic — began to mutter to him-
self.

Then Hardenberg spoke aloud :

"I particularly don't want — that —
out — there — to cross our bows. I
don't want it to come to that. We
must get some sails on her."

"And I put it to you as man to
man," said Strokher, "where might
be your wind?"

He was right. The Glarus floated
in absolute calm. On all that slab
of ocean nothing moved but the
Dead Ship.

She came on slowly; her bows,
the high clumsy bows pointed to-
ward us, the water turning from her
forefoot. She came on ; she was
near at hand. We saw her plainly
— saw the rotted planks, the crum-
bling rigging, the rust corroded
metal work, the broken rail, the gap-
ing deck, and I could imagine that
the clean water broke away from
her sides in refluent wavelets as
.though in recoil from a thing un-
clean. She made no sound. No
single thing stirred aboard the hulk
of her — but she moved.

We were helpless. The Glarus
could stir no boat in any direction;
we were chained to the spot. No-
body had thought to put out our
lights, and they still burned on
through the dawn, strangely out of
place in their red and green garish-
ness, like masquers surprised by
daylight.

And in the silence of that empty
ocean, in that queer half light be-
tween dawn and day, at six o'clock,

448

THE SHIP THAT SAW A GHOST

silent as the settling of the dead to
the bottomless bottom of the ocean,
gray as fog, lonely, blind, soulless,
voiceless, the Dead Ship crossed
our bows.

I do not know how long after this
the Ship disappeared, or what was
the time of day when we at last
pulled ourselves together. But we
came to some sort of decision at last.
This was to go on — under sail. We
were too close to the island now to
turn back for — for a broken shaft.

The afternoon was spent fitting
on the sails to her, and when after
nightfall the wind at length came up
fresh and favorable, I believe we all
felt heartened and a deal" more
hardy, until the last canvas, went
aloft, and Hardenberg took the
wheel.

We had drifted a good deal since
the morning, and the bows of the
Glarus were pointed homeward, but
as soon as the breeze blew strong
enough to get steerage way, Har-
denberg put the wheel over, and as
the booms swung across the deck
headed for the island again.

We had not gone on this course
half an hour — no, not twenty min-
utes— before the wind shifted a
whole quarter of the compass and
took the Glarus square in the teeth,
so that there was nothing for it but
to tack. And then the Strangest
Thing befell.

I will make allowance for the fact
that there was no centreboard nor
keel to speak of to the Glarus. I will
admit that the sails upon a nine
hundred ton freighter are not calcu-
lated to speed her, nor steady her.
I will even admit the possibility of
a current that set from the island to-

ward us. All this may be true, yet
the Glarus should have advanced.
We should have made a wake.

And instead of this, our stolid,
steady, trusty old boat was — what
shall I say?

I will say that no man may thor-
oughly understand a ship, after all.
I will say that new ships are cranky
and unsteady, that old and seasoned
ships have their little crotchets,
their little fussinesses that their
skippers must learn and humor
if they are to get anything out
of them, that even the best ships
may ■ sulk at times, shirk their
work, grow unstable, perverse, and
refuse to answer helm and hand-
ling. And I will say that some
ships that for years have sailed blue
water as soberly and as docilely as
a street-car horse has plodded the
treadmill of the 'tween-tracks, have
been known to balk as stubbornly
and as conclusively as any old Bay
Billy that ever wore a bell. I know
this has happened, because I have
seen it. I saw, for instance, the
Glarus do it.

Quite literally and truly we could
do nothing with her. We will say,
if you like, that that great jar and
wrench when the shaft gave way
shook her and crippled her. It is
true, however, that whatever the
cause may have been, we could not
force her toward the island. Of
course we all said, "Current;" but
why didn't the log-line trail?

For three days and three nights
we tried it. And the Glarus heaved
and plunged and shook herself just
as you have seen a horse plunge and
rear when his rider tries to force him
at the steam roller.

THE SHIP THAT SAW A GHOST

449

I tell you I could feel the fabric of
her tremble and shudder from bow
to stern post, as though she were in
a storm ; I tell you she fell off from
the wind, and broad-on drifted back
from her course till the sensation of
her shrinking was as plain as her
own staring lights and a thing piti-
ful to see.

We rowelled her and we crowded
sail upon her, and we coaxed and
bullied and humored her, till the
Three Crows, their fortune only a
plain sail two days ahead, raved and
swore like insensate brutes, or shall
we say like mahouts, trying to drive
their stricken elephant upon the
tiger, and all to no purpose. "Damn
the damned current and the
damned luck and the damned shaft
and all," Hardenberg would exclaim,
as from the wheel he would watch
the Glarus falling off. "Go on, you
old hooker — you tub of junk ! My
God, you'd think she was scared !"

Perhaps the Glarus was scared,
perhaps not; that point is debatable.
But it was beyond doubt or debate
that Hardenberg was scared.

A ship that will not obey is only
one degree less terrible than a mu-
tinous crew. And we were in a fair
way to have both. The stokers
whom we had impressed into duty
as A. B.'s, were of course supersti-
tious. They had seen — what we
had seen; and they knew how the
Glarus was acting, and it was only a
question of time before they got out
of hand.

That was the end. We held a
final conference in the cabin and de-
cided that there was no help for it —
we must turn back.

And back we accordingly turned,

and at once the wind followed us,
and the "current" helped us, and the
water churned under the forefoot of
the Glarus, and the wake whitened
under her stern, and the log line ran
out from the rail and strained back
as' the ship worked homeward.

We had never a mishap from the
time we finally swung her about;
and, considering the circumstances,
the voyage back to San Francisco
was propitious.

But an incident happened just af-
ter we had started back. We were
perhaps some five miles on the
homeward track. It was early even-
ing and Strokher had the watch.
At about seven o'clock he called me
up on the bridge.

"See her?" he said.

And there, far behind us in the
shadow of the twilight, loomed the
Other Ship again, desolate, lonely
beyond words. We were leaving
her rapidly astern. Strokher and I
stood looking at her till she dwindled
to a dot. Then Strokher said :

"She's on post again."

And when months afterward we
limped into the Golden Gate and
cast anchor off the Front, our
crew went ashore as soon as dis-
charged, and in half a dozen hours
the legend was in every sailors'
boarding house and in every sea-
man's dive, from the Barbary Coast
to Black Tom's.

It is still there, and that is why
no pilot will take the Glarus out, no
captain will navigate her, no stoker
feed her fires, no sailor walk her
decks. The Glarus is suspect. She
will never smell blue water again,
nor taste the trades. She has seen
a Ghost.

With a Boston Market Man

By Joseph Nelson Pardee

HY not? Jump on and
take a trip to market
with me."

It was a hot night
in August. We had been sitting on
the piazza smoking our after dinner
cigars. Electric cars were whizzing
by, loaded to the running boards with
coatless men and hatless women, out
for a cooling breeze. A string of
market wagons, with their square
built loads of produce, covered with
the inevitable "sail cloth," plodded by.
The drivers, in shirt sleeves and over-
alls, bareheaded, were lounging on the
seats, and now and then urging their
hot horses to a little faster walk.
Many a mile had they come in the
most sultry part of the day, and sev-
eral miles were still before them. The
procession, broken at intervals, had
been moving since noon, and would
continue until morning.

From under the sunshade of one
of the wagons we had recognized the
familiar face of our friend John of
Billford, and called on him to stop and
give us the news from the country.
The usual remarks about the weather
had been passed, questions about the
crops answered, the market prospects
discussed, when John gave the invita-
tion to accompany him to market.

With a curiosity to understand the

process through which a part of our

dinner had come to us from the farms,

and after a hasty preparation, I was

450

soon perched upon the seat with John,
and we were rumbling along toward
Quincy Market. John, as he is
familiarly called at home, is a typical
farmer from the suburban district.
His beard is not trimmed in the pre-
vailing style, and underneath his
overalls his trousers would not show
the crease of the man of fashion. His
dress is of inexpensive quality, but
in his case, the "cheap coat" does not
indicate the "cheap man," by any
means.

The city boys may call him a "hay-
seed," but at home John is a man of
substance and social standing. He
has held various town offices, has
served on the school committee, and
is now one of the selectmen of Bill-
ford. In the city stores he is cor-
dially greeted, and his credit is A
No. 1. John is not a market gar-
dener. His farm is a large one, and
his main business is milk. With the
shrewd calculation of his class he
makes his fields do double duty. Not
only two crops a year is his rule, but
his principal crops are planted with
one eye on the market and the other
upon the crib.

He has acres of sweet corn. If the
market price warrants, he can pick the
ears and haul them in, while the stover
goes into the silo. If the price is too
low, the corn goes in with the stover.
Of cabbage he has an acre or so,
which may add a hundred dollars to

WITH A BOSTON MARKET MAN

451

his bank account, or, if not worth
marketing, it makes the best of cattle
feed. Turnips, as a second crop, may
prove very profitable, or may be fed
to advantage. And John knows how
to fed them without tainting his milk.
Of other vegetables he is bound to
have enough for home use whatever
the season, and he plants so that he
generally has a surplus to sell.

His orchard is extensive, and while
the No. i fruit is put away for winter
trade, his team makes many a trip
to South Market Street with "wind-
falls" and "seconds." Some of this
we learn as we plod along through
Cambridge at a steady gait, hurrying
only as fast as the heat will permit.
When the weather is cool and the
roads good, he usually jogs his horses,
for it is a matter of considerable im-
portance to get a good stand.

Except in the case of the regular
market men, the rule of the market
is "first come, first served." The
regular comers can get a ticket, which
entitles them to a regular stand on
Sunday nights for the season. This
stand is reserved for them until ten
o'clock on that night. Then, by
keeping a wagon there constantly with
something on it to sell, they can hold
the stand all the week. On Satur-
day night every wagon is driven off
and cannot return until six o'clock on
Sunday evening.

In this way, John tells me, the best
stands, at the lower end, are occupied
by near-by gardeners, with every va-
riety of garden stuff. They keep a
regular salesman there, and fresh
loads come in before the first wagon
is unloaded. The salesman is in close
touch with the garden, by telephone,
and can hurry in loads, or keep them

back, according to the supply and de-
mand of the market.

Thus, pleasantly chatting, we move
along, past the great packing houses,
with lights glimmering from the win-
dows, and the squealing of hogs steal-
ing out on the night air, telling of
horrible doings by the night gang.

Not a human being is in sight, but
as we pass under the structure of the
Elevated Railroad John begins to
carefully watch the shadows cast un-
der his wagon by the electric lights.
Recalling to mind that he has a com-
panion, he hands over the reins, gets
down, and taking to the sidewalk,
loiters along behind with no apparent
interest in the rumbling wagon.

As we go up the hill on Cambridge
Street the scene changes. Even at
this late hour groups are gathered
here and there. Young men and
maidens are strolling by, and boys are
playing in the gutters. Interested in
the scene, I have forgotten John's
strange conduct, when suddenly I
hear a scream, and John's excited
voice, exclaiming, "I've got him;"
and in an instant John appears with
a struggling boy in his arms, asking
half seriously what he shall do with
him. I take in the situation, and re-
ply : "Put him up here, and we will
take him to the police station."

The boy is a well dressed little fel-
low of twelve years or so, apparently
of respectable parentage, and prob-
ably a member of some Sunday
school, who has evaded the curfew
law, if there is no law at home for him
to evade. He has now ceased strug-
gling, and begun to plead: "Please,
sir, let me go and I will never do it
again." John has a kind heart. He
gives the boy a moral lecture, lets him

452

WITH A BOSTON MARKET MAN

go and resumes his seat on the
wagon.

"This," he says, "is a troublesome
part of the road. It is not adequately
policed, and the temptation to steal
fruit from the farmers' wagons is ir-
resistible to the gamins that inhabit
this part of Cambridge. When sev-
eral teams go along together, one man
can watch the team ahead of him.
When we are alone we watch the
shadows, but even then some of the
thieves have a cunning that is too
much for us. We usually brace in the
boxes at the tail of the wagon, or put
in empty boxes, but if we leave room
for a hand, we may find when we un-
cover that we have lost half a bushel
of fruit. Sometimes our ropes are
cut, and we have had great slits cut
in our canvas by the thieves. It is
not always boys that do the mischief.
It is as often grown men. One night
I 'cut behind' with my whip and
drew blood from the face of a rather
pretty girl. Their skill and cunning
are worthy of a better cause. We may
watch for shadows, but they are keen
enough to take us just when we are
in the strong glare of the arc light in
front, so that the shadow of their legs
is thrown backward rather than under
the wagon. Although the street may be
full of people, they seem to consider it
to be none of their business, or as per-
pectly legitimate to plunder a hayseed."

By this time we have reached the
river. Before us and around us is a
veritable "feast of lights."

Long stretches of lights glimmering
along the banks, lights of the distant
bridges, lights of the moving cars,
lights rising above lights up Beacon
Hill, crowned by the illumination of
the State House dome, and all in-

versely repeated in the rippling water,
make a picture worth jolting over
pavements many a mile to see.

Now we are passing up Leverett
Street, not yet gone to bed. We
swing down into Wall Street to save
pulling over the hill. A narrow street
it is, with solid brick walls on either
side, which hold the heat all night.

The heat has driven a suffering
mass of human beings out of their
stiffling rooms into the open air, such
as it is. Tired women sit in the door-
ways with sleeping infants in their
arms. Tired children are sprawled
upon the steps, and tired men lie along
the sidewalks with hot bricks for a
mattress, and weary arms for a pil-
low. All is still as death, except for
the clink, clank, clink of the iron shoes
of the horses on the stones, and the
rumble, rattle and rumble of the iron
tires over the rough, uneven pavement.

John is, withal, a philosopher. "We
think we have a hard time in the coun-
try," he says, "with hard work, early
and late, rigid economy and few luxu-
ries, but thank Heaven ! we can sleep.
And our children ! how little do we
realize theparadisein which they live !

"These are mostly Jews. Though
they may be poor, they live, on the
whole, wholesomely and comfortably.
What might we see to-night if we
should go down into the Latin quarter
among the poor Italians. 'Man made
the town, God made the country.' "

We stop at the trough on Merrimac
Street to give the tired horses the last
drink on the road, and shortly pull up
by Faneuil Hall.

We are in another country. The
air as well as the scene is changed,
and even the horses notice it and
draw a full breath from the salt sea.

WITH A BOSTON MARKET MAN

453

The Rumbling Market
Wagons Crossing
Cambridge Bridge

While up above, from Scollay
Square to Bowdoin, stores are open,
playhouses in full blast, and crowds
are moving either way, down here the
street seems absolutely deserted. The
buildings are unlighted. Not a sound
is heard but that of our own team,
and the striking of a clock. Only a
solitary policeman saunters by, not
even looking at us. A solid mass of
canvas greets us as we move down the
street.

Suddenly, from some hidden recess,
half a dozen stable boys appear. They
recognize the team and as suddenly
disappear. John is Tommy's cus-
tomer, and in an instant Tommy comes
running up with a word of cheery
greeting and a beckoning wave of the

hand. Ke has a stand selected and we
follow him into Winn Ricker's row.
"Each row," John says, "is known by
the name of the stall nearest it under
the Quincy Market."

The horses are quickly unhitched,
feed bags are hung upon the hames,
blankets thrown across their backs,
and off they go to the stable.

The pole is removed from the
wagon, Tommy takes hold of the
crossbar, John and I each grasp a
wheel, and the heavy wagon, with its
two-ton load, is easily butted up
against the head of a wagon in the
adjoining row, and Tommy follows
the horses to the stable.

It is midnight and John has had no
supper. That is the next considera-

454

WITH A BOSTON MARKET MAN

Superintendent McKay

tion. First, however, as he is loaded
largely with sweet corn, which heats
easily, he thinks it best to uncover.
Some of the loads are uncovered, and
boxes of fruit, vegetables and corn are
spread out on the pavement.

John removes his ropes, rolls up his
canvas, puts his whip into the bottom
of the wagon, for whips, he says, like
watermelons in the garden, are legiti-
mate plunder, tucks his oil skin under
the seat, and says, "Come, let's go and
feed."

We pass along the sidewalk around
the market. Stacks of vegetables,
choice fruit from all parts of the
world are piled up in profusion, ready
for the morning trade. Now and then
men stroll along, evidently farmers
like ourselves. Accustomed, on the
avenue, to bolts and locks, it seems a
little risky to leave so much tempting
property unprotected on a public
street and I ask, "Is it safe?"

"Safe," he replies. "There is no
safer place in Boston. Do you see
that man in citizen's dress tipped up
in an armchair against the wall, half

asleep? That is Symmes the night
watch. Asleep or awake he has
eyes all over him, like a traditional
schoolma'am. He knows by in-
stinct who has business down here
at night, and who has not. Woe to
the fellow with light fingers who
comes prowling around this place.
Last week two farmers, with country
freedom, took two pears from an open
box. They settled with him for two
dollars apiece rather than to face
McKay in the morning. An 'explana-
tion' then would have cost them
twenty."

"Is he an officer?" I asked.

"Well, he gets his authority from
the city, but draws his pay from the
market men. The market men on the
sidewalk each pay him two dollars a
week, and the farmers give him a
quarter every Friday. It is big pay,
but if anything is stolen at night he is
supposed to pay for it."

By this time we have reached the
New England House. The waiters

Symmes, the Night Watch

Swept and Garnished on Sunday

nod familiarly, the cook greets us cor-
dially, and after a welcome wash we
are seated at a table that would do
credit to any hotel in Boston. One
side of the dining-room is occupied
by a well stocked bar, which is closed
at this hour, and in one corner is the
range, from which come sounds and
odors of cooking that would tempt
appetites less keen than John's and
mine, though I had dined six hours
ago.

While waiting for our orders to be
served I asked if John always got in
as late as this.

"Oh, no," he says. "We like to
start by noon or before so as to be
sure of a good stand and a night's
sleep. Sometimes we go to the theatre
in the evening. But at this time of
year, with perishable stuff that can-
not be picked the day before, it takes
us about all day to put up a load.
Sometimes it is ten o'clock or after
when we start, and we get in only in

time for the early market. Late in
the fall, when there is danger of freez-
ing our stuff, we do not start until
midnight.

After a good supper, the next move
is toward the stables. Those patron-
ized by farmers are great brick build-
ings, story above story, and are among
the best in the city. John shakes
hands with the head hostler and is
told where to find his horses. A thor-
oughgoing democracy is the rule in
the market section. Your hired coach-
man* may trust his horses to a stable
boy, and make no further inquiry, but
not so your farmer John. He looks
to see that their mangers are filled
with hay, and that they are bedded to
their knees. If the hay Tommy gave
them has been eaten, he is at liberty
to give them more. From his own
feed bag he gives them a liberal feed
of oats, for marketing is hard on
horses as well as on men.

It is now one o'clock, and a little

455

Sleeping in the Hayloft

sleep is not to be despised. This is
a free lodging house. John takes his
blankets and we climb to the loft.
The air has cooled a little, and win-
dows and doors are open to admit the
gentle breeze that is wafted from the
harbor near by. John turns on the
electric light, and the sight that greets
us reminds us of a bivouac on the
field. Fifty or a hundred men and
boys are sprawled in all directions on
the hay. Some, unable to sleep, are
talking in low tones, but the great
majority, old hands at the business, are
sleeping as sweetly as in their beds at
home.

John selects a spot as near the door

as possible, cuts open a bale of hay,

shakes it out, spreads his blankets over

it, pulls off his boots, rolls up his coat

456

for a pillow, stretches himself at ful:
length and invites me to do likewise
which I am not long in doing. In twc
minutes he is fast asleep. Since he
got up at Billford, twenty-one hours
ago, he has earned two hours' sleep.

At this "hotel equus" the rising hour
is early. At three o'clock a hostler
comes around and calls, "All up.']
Some are too sleepy and so he picks
his way among them and shakes the
sleepy ones until every man is awake.
Some of them have no goods for the
earliest market, and they go to sleep
again.

John, however, is on the alert. He

rises, rubs his eyes, draws

his!

boots, puts on his coat, and tells me|
that I can sleep as long as I wish. But
I am here to see the whole show, so

It is the Height of the Season

I follow suit. We roll up the blankets,
take them down and hang them on
the peg behind the horses, and start
off to Cottrell's for an "eye opener."
We are not yet hungry, but a cup of
coffee that goes to the nerve centres,
and a "single" (single biscuit) of gen-
erous proportions, hot from the oven,

put us in good temper for the morn-
ing trade.

Before we go to the wagon we take
a look around the market. It is the
height of the season, and South Mar-
ket Street is full. Every stand on
Commercial Street, where wagons
may stand until nine o'clock, is occu-

457

458

WITH A BOSTON MARKET MAN

pied, and the overflow has filled State
Street, four wagons abreast, clear
down to Atlantic Avenue.

John glances at them with the criti-
cal eye of previous experience. He
says he is "gauging the market," and
he remarks, "The market is full. Stuff
goes low to-day. I shall sell at the
first good offer."

The best customers are already
going up and down the street, climb-
ing on to wagons and lighting matches
in some cases to sample the loads.
They are mostly young men, with a
quick business air and of few
words. "How much?" "Fifty cents."
"Make it forty-five and I will take
twenty boxes."

They are buying for wholesale and
jobbing houses. They have orders to
fill for hotels in the White Mountains
and down by the seashore, or for
stores in northern cities, and for their
own city trade. Time is money, and
they have none to waste in banter.

They know their business and can
quickly measure the demand and sup-
ply. They know most of the farmers,
too, and how they put up their stuff.
They want the best and are willing to
pay a fair price for it. They are the
best class of customers on the market,
and the farmer who by bringing good
stuff, honestly packed, has worked up
a trade with them is a fortunate man.

John sells a part of his load. The
buyer hands him a card, and in five
minutes a team comes along, the
driver calling out the buyer's name
and the stuff is quickly loaded on the
wagon. After John has sold out and
is ready to go home, or during a lull
he will go around and get his money
and his empty boxes.

The bushel box is an eastern insti-

tution. Everything on the street is
sold by the box or barrel, except cab-
bage and squash. Those are most
generally sold by the piece. There is
no retailing. "Peddling," in the mar-
ket vernacular, means selling in small
lots of one or more bushels. A box is
synonymous with a legal bushel, and
has certain reasons for being. It is
made of light lumber, is eighteen
inches square, and eight inches deep
inside. Holes are cut in either end
for handles.

The advantages of this box, over
the Jersey basket, aside from con-
venience of handling, are that a heavy
load can be put upon the deck boards
of a wagon without being bulky, and
can be bound solidly by a few turns
of the binding rope so that it will ride
safe on the roughest roads. The shape
of the box is the invention of a genu-
ine Yankee, for in packing empty
boxes two boxes can be placed corner-
wise into one, and a fourth box in-
verted on top, thus economizing space
and preventing shifting.

The Boston wagon seems to have
been made to fit the boxes. Not only
the tread of the wheels, but the box
itself is about a foot wider than the
farm wagons in use north and west of
the vicinity of the Hub. Thus two
boxes or two barrels can be placed
abreast in the wagon box, and the
box of the regular market wagon is
deep enough so that boxes can be
packed two deep under the deck
boards. A western man looking at
a two-horse market load expressed
grave doubt when told that it con-
tained one hundred and four bushels
of produce, weighing about 5,700
pounds. The wagon box, six boxes
long, held twenty-four. Five deck

WITH A BOSTON MARKET MAN

459

boards four boxes long carried sixteen
each, and the load above the deck was
only thirty-four inches high.

One inconvenience of the Boston
market wagon is its . height. High
wheels are necessary on country roads,
and in city streets the wagon must not
require too much space in turning,
therefore, to allow for room for the
front wheels to turn well under, the
body is so high that it requires high
lifting to put the load on the wagon.

When a sale is made the box is not
included in the price agreed upon.
You must give a box in exchange or
add ten cents to the price. Whether
an old box or a new box, a box is a
box and legal tender for a dime. The
promise of a stranger to return the
box is of no value on the market. "A
box or a dime," is an invariable rule.

The wholesale buyers are soon gone
and the sun begins to throw slanting
rays over the tops of the tall buildings.
Light teams with empty boxes drive
up and stop on the opposite side of
the street, and grocery men, provision
men, hotel stewards and restaurant
keepers pass up and down the rows,
stopping at sight of what they want
to bargain with the farmers. In an
hour they are joined by hucksters,
street peddlers, Italian fruit men with
hand carts, women who keep boarding
houses, and sometimes ladies in car-
riages who send their coachmen down
the rows to examine the truck. Even
John Chinaman is there, though most-
ly in evidence at the poultry wagons.
Now teams begin to back down be-
tween the farmers' wagons to unload
goods for stalls along the sidewalk.

John is a busy man just now, Two
words with a grocery man who knows
him, and two boxes must be taken to

a wagon across the street. Next
comes an ill clad Israelite, whose chief
object in life seems to be to buy at a
heavy discount from the market price.
In that respect he is equalled only by
the Italian women. "How much for
die sweet apples?" he asks. "Half a
dollar," says John, "but the apples
are sour." y "I gif you fifteen cents."
"Fifty cents, I say," John replies
with emphasis. Solomon shrugs his
shoulders, spreads his hands and
whines, "I poor man. I gif you fifteen
cents. I gif you moneys in your hant.
No? I gif you tventy." But John
has turned to other customers.

All about is bantering, bargaining,
chaffing, each trader trying to get the
better of the other. The buyers, made
wise by experience, go to the bottom
of the boxes to see that they are not
being cheated by big on top and little
underneath. It is expected that the
top of the box will appear well, but
many of the farmers are not above
unscrupulous "deaconing."

"How much is it deaconed?" asks
a peddler. "All it will bear," answers
honest John. "If you are not satis-
fied dump it out into another box."

The street is now crowded with
teams. Teams of all descriptions,
from the "sheney's" hand cart and my
lady's coupe to the big butcher's
wagon and the heavy express. The
noise rises to a roar, but there is no
confusion.

All sorts and conditions of traffick-
ers in produce are here, and you may
study types from every nation on the
globe. Old hands at the business
stand behind some of the wagons,
while next to them are beardless boys
of fourteen years or under with their
loads. The Irishman seems to pre-

460

WITH A BOSTON MARKET MAN

dominate, but there are many Swedes
and of late Polish Jews are driving in.
All the farmers in a row may be
strangers to each other but there is
cordial fraternity among them, and
confidence all around underlies seem-
ing mistrust.

John is bantered by a peddler and
accused of swindling, but the charge
does not touch a sensitive spot. A
bargain struck, and the stuff paid for,
off goes the buyer without a word.
It may be hours before he comes for
his property. John has a chance to
sell the stuff again, or carry it away,
but the owner has no fear. A bargain
is a bargain, and confidence is restored
the instant it is struck.

"Don't you ever have disturbances
on the market, John?" I innocently
ask.

"Oh, yes. Sometimes. But law
rules on the market as elsewhere. Up
in the office of the superintendent is a
man who sternly represents the law.
A little angry talk in his jurisdiction
will quickly bring an officer, with a
quiet invitation to go up and see
McKay, and the invitation means a
fine, if nothing worse."

It is now nine o'clock and quiet be-
gins to settle down. Few teams are
passing, and buyers are not numerous.
Farmers begin to visit with their
neighbors, talk about the crops, the
price of milk, methods of tillage, sci-
entific feeding, and even politics are
not eschewed. In fact, at times the
market becomes a veritable "Farm-
ers' Institute."

With the growing quiet we begin to
feel the need of breakfast. John
speaks to his next neighbor, a total
stranger, asks him to look after his
load, names the lowest price at which

he may sell, and we go to breakfast.
The horses have been fed in the morn-
ing by the stable man. On a quick
market John would have sold out long
ago. Some have done so and pulled
out for home. Other teams have come
to take their places, and as this is the
height of the season the going and
coming will continue all day long.

Through the middle of the day cus-
tomers are straggling. Farmers are
tired of the business, and this is the
opportunity for the hucksters. As a
rule the farmers do not love them be-
cause they beat down so unmercifully,
but John regards them as the salva-
tion of the market. They are here
now to buy at the lowest price, and
they will buy anything- if they can
make anything out of it. Having
bought they must sell, and if the mar-
ket is glutted they must tempt cus-
tomers by selling very low.

The storekeeper buys for his regular
trade, and varies his retail price very
little from day to day. After the regu-
lar trade is supplied the farmer may
be left with half his perishable prod-
uce on his hands. Then comes the
peddler who relieves him of his sur-
plus at some price, and sells it at a
price that brings it within the reach of
the poor, to whom it may be something
of a luxury. "No," says John. "We
can't get along without the peddlers."

This is the time, while market men
are idle, for another class of peddlers
to get in their work. Here comes one
with a new kind of wagon grease, of-
fering it at your own price. Another
with harness oil. One with overalls
and jumpers. A white-whiskered,
neatly dressed little Jew, his head
about as high as John's stomach, offers
sponges. A German comes along with

Bargaining with the Farmers

a cushion under his arm, and John
gives him an order for a new cushion
for his wagon seat. A tall man, with
a tongue well oiled, steps up briskly
and tries to induce me to take out a
life insurance policy. Last, not least,
comes the portly watch chain man.
"Now look out for fun," John whis-
pers. "He is after greenies." '

The old men know him and he
knows them, and he passes them by

for a young fellow, apparently fresh
from the country, who seems to prom-
ise easy game.

"Young man, you want a fine gold
chain. Look at this. It's worth five
dollars. It's the last I've got and I'll
sell it for two and a half."

But the young man is on his guard,
and says, "I have no use for it."

"But, if you don't want to wear it
you can trade it off at home for five

46i

462

WITH A BOSTON MARKET MAN

dollars, any day. As it is the last I've
got, and I want to close out, you can
have it for two."

"I am not buying gold chains to-
day. I have other use for money, with
stuff selling at a quarter a box."

"Well then, make me an offer."

The young man turns on his heel
and with a laugh says innocently, "I'll
give you fifteen cents."

The old fellow puts on a dramatic
air of disgust for a moment, and then
in a tone of resignation, exclaims,
"Well, it's the last I've got; take it."

The country lad is beaten, and amid
the shouts of the bystanders he pays
the bill, kicking himself meanwhile
because he has offered more than ten.
John says, "He would have got it if he
had offered five."

At twelve o'clock an officer comes
along and orders the outside wagons
at the ends of the rows to be removed,
in order to make more street room for
the afternoon traffic, and about two
o'clock the scenes of the morning be-
gin again. Dealers from the suburbs
pour in, and peddlers in greater num-
bers, and until about five o'clock the
street becomes almost impassable.
There would be jam after jam but for
the skill of the police in keeping teams
moving in the right direction. A sin-
gle day on the market in July or
August would convince the city
fathers that Boston seriously needs im-
proved market facilities.

John has sold out and sent Tommy
after his horses, but it is an hour be-
fore we get out of the jam and join
the solid procession of teams moving
toward the bridge.

It will be midnight before John
reaches home, tired and sleepy. I
shall never again suspect a market

man of being drunk if I meet him on
the avenue, asleep on his wagon, even
though the saloons around the market
are doing a thriving business. As we
move out of the city, the horses seem-
ing to sniff the air from the pastures
at home, I ask John if it pays.

"Does it pay?" he repeats. "Figure
it out for yourself. It took two men
a day of hard work to put up the load.
Their wages by the month and their
board cost me two dollars. Two
horses two days for the trip actually
cost two dollars. My own time is
worth, at least, as much as a common
hand. That is two dollars more.
Then I paid a dollar and a half at the
stable, ten cents for coffee and a bis-
cuit, twenty-five cents for breakfast,
thirty for dinner, and thirty-five for
supper last night. That amounts to
$8.50. It would have been eighty
cents less if I had sold out in the
morning. My load was of rather
coarse stuff, such as only men engaged
in dairying can afford to raise. I sold
my load at an average of twenty-five
cents a box, or $20.00. That leaves
me $11.50.

"At the present price of grain it
would have had a feeding value of
twenty cents, or $16.00 for the load.
At this reckoning I have lost $4.50
besides the wear and tear, which is
something considerable."

"Why do you do it then?" I asked.

"Well, you see," he replied, "we do
not always calculate so closely. In
fact the most of us do not calculate at
all. We have the stuff and we take
it to market as a matter of course.
Going to market makes a kind of ex-
cusable holiday for us. To young
men there is a peculiar fascination
about it. It is a change from the

IN EXTREMIS

463

monotony of farm work, and they see
life in some of its real phases, and it
brings them into contact with all kinds
of men. But to us old fellows it is
rather serious. It is a kind of gam-
ble. On a good market we may get
two or three times as much for our
stuff as we have to-day. Sometimes
we get less. One day the market is
up, and another day it is down. We
hear of high prices, and in we come.
Everybody else has heard the same
and everybody is here and down go
the prices. Then too, for the most
of us the bed rock comes pretty near
the surface and our financial soil is
not very deep. Although we may
plough and plant in the spring with
the full intention of not going to mar-
ket unless the market demand is good,
when crops are ready and marketable,
bills are coming in, interest and taxes
are falling due ; we have the stuff and
it is good for cash. Therefore, with-
out stopping to figure out profit and
loss, or what our time and produce
would be worth at home, we load it

on to the wagon and to market we
go.

"Some of us may console ourselves
with the benevolent thought that if
we had been sure of low prices, and
had stopped to count the cost, many
a workingman's wife in the city would
have thought twice before she de-
cided to add an ear of sweet corn to
her Patrick's supper, or give him cab-
bage with his corned beef."

I wish John better luck next time
and say, "Good night." He lights hi-',
pipe, chirps cheerily to his horses, and
like the philosopher he and his kind
are, drives home through the darkness
to the midnight supper the faithful
Mary has kept steaming hot for him.

I can see her now, as in a vision,
sitting by- the window, darning stock-
ings to economize the time, while she
is listening, listening, listening for the
distant chuckle of his wheels.

To the cost of the food upon our
table, how much shall we add for the
wear and strain upon the farmer's
wife ?

In Extremis

Bv Charlotte Becker

THOUGH great his pain, who prays as sorrow bid,
"Father, forgive, I know not what I did," —
Yet greater far his agony who cries,
"Father, forgive, I sinned with open eyes !"

Dedication of the Bowlder, August 17, 1902

The Founding of a Faith

By Edward Gilman Mason

ON Sunday, August the 17th,
1902, a memorial, in itself
unique and commemorat-
ing one of the strangest
and most romantic incidents in
American church history, was dedi-
cated with simple and impressive
ceremony. In form a rude granite
bowlder, an irregular triangle in
shape, four feet across the base, four
and a half feet from base to apex
and two feet in thickness, weighing

464

perhaps three tons, it rests on a
slight artificial elevation of ground
on the outskirts of a beautiful grove
of oaks, near the small hamlet of
Good Luck, New Jersey, some two
miles from the shores of Barnegat
Bay. The stone remains exactly as
it was when discovered on the sum-
mit of Rocky Hill, near Princeton,
except that a panel two feet square
has been cut into the face, beautiful-
ly polished and inscribed as follows:

FOUNDING OF A FAITH

465

NEAR THIS SPOT FIRST

MET

THOMAS POTTER, THE

PROPHET,

AND JOHN MURRAY, THE

APOSTLE,

OF UNIVERSALISM.

THE FOLLOWING SUNDAY,

SEPT. 30, I770,

MURRAY FIRST PREACHED

IN AMERICA.

The Wilderness and the Sol-
itary Place were glad for
them.

Near by is a little frame meet-
ing-house, the successor of the
rude chapel in which Murray first
proclaimed his doctrines in the
New World. The Potter Memorial
Church, a handsome Gothic chapel

« ' ' i£m

CAR THIS SPOT FWSTMiT {

Memorial Bowlder

of brick and stone, erected about
thirty years ago by the Universalists
of America, occupies a portion of
the lot on which the memorial itself
stands.

The circumstances of Murray's

Potter Memorial Church

466

FOUNDING OF A FAITH

meeting with Potter and the incep-
tion of the movement which cul-
minated in the founding of the Uni-
versalist denomination, drawn chief-
ly from Murray's own narrative, but
corroborated by local tradition and
contemporary documentary evi-
dence, make an interesting story.

One night near the close of Sep-
tember, in the year 1770, an English
sea captain, confused by the heavy
fog, lost his bearings while sailing
along the coast of New Jersey, on
his way from Philadelphia to New
York, and unwittingly steered his
vessel straight towards the strip of
sand which then, as now, enclosed
Barnegat Bay. By remarkable good
fortune the brig did not strike the
sand, but bumped upon a bar at
the mouth of a stream connecting
the bay with the ocean, passed over
it safely, and for the first and last
time, so far as history records, a ship
of considerable size floated on the
shallow waters of Cranberry Inlet.
The following morning the ship was
lightened, and with the aid of a high
tide and favoring breeze was soon
able to again put to sea; but the
wind suddenly changed and pre-
vented a native sloop, to which a
part of the cargo had been trans-
ferred, from following the larger
vessel.

Later in the day a man from the
sloop appeared at the house of
Thomas Potter, a planter, in search
of food. The desired supplies were
furnished the stranger, for which no
payment was accepted, other than a
promise that he would come back to
pass the night as a guest at the
planter's home. When he returned,
Potter's strange greeting was: "My

friend, I am glad you have come; I
have longed to see you ; I have been
expecting you for a long time." The
interview thus begun lasted far into
the night.

It soon became evident to Murray
that his new-found friend and host,
though an illiterate man, possessed
an alert and thoughtful mind. The
subject of religion occupied his at-
tention a great deal, and for many
years it had been his custom to open
his house to all sects, bidding them
welcome to gather there for religious
worship, though uniting with none.
Finally the conviction pressed itself
upon his mind that he was in some
way destined to aid in bringing the
world to a larger conception of the
mission of Christ than he had ever
heard preached by any of the minis-
ters with whom he came in contact.
The conviction grew and deepened,
until at last, at his own expense and
partially with his own hands, Potter
erected a church. This he opened
to all denominations, but dedicated
to none, for he steadfastly affirmed
that God would some time send a
messenger of the true gospel, and
that for such a preacher he must
wait. Years passed by and the com-
mon taunt, "Thomas Potter, where
is your preacher?" was still an-
swered by the old man in the spirit
of tranquil, patient faith, "He will
by and by make his appearance."
"When I saw the brig this morning
in Cranberry Inlet yonder," declared
the old planter, "a voice seemed to
speak audibly to me, saying, 'There,
Potter, in yonder vessel, is the
preacher you have so long been ex-
pecting;' and when I saw you com-
ing toward my home to-day, the

The Potter Church

same voice seemed to say, 'This is the
man sent to preach in your house.'
I heard the voice," said the old man
simply, ''and I believed the report/'

Having told his own life story,
Potter requested a similar narrative
from his astonished guest.

The stranger proved to be an
Englishman, John Murray by name,
and, as the planter had surmised, a
former preacher. He was twenty-
nine years of age, the son of religious
parents, his father being a member
of the Church of England ,and his
mother a communicant of the Pres-
byterian denomination. As a boy
he had been reared in the Estab-
lished Church, but found little there-
in to commend religion to him.
Naturally a warm-hearted, generous,
affectionate child, he was early re-
pelled by the bleak and forbidding
Calvinism which his father cher-
ished, and it was but natural that

when John Wesley inaugurated his
great revolt against the cold, un-
sympathetic, unspiritual condition
into which the Church of England
had drifted, Murray should become
a convert. He was very popular
among his Methodist brethren and
soon became a class leader. His
faith in Methodism, however, was
destined to be short-lived. In an at-
tempt to refute the teachings of
James Relly, a preacher of univer-
sal salvation in the city of London,
he found himself overmastered, soon
became interested, and finally ac-
cepted unreservedly that interpreta-
tion of the gospel which he had such
a little time previously felt called
upon to disprove and condemn as
false and pernicious.

Murray soon discovered that
many who had professed friendship
while he was a Churchman or
Methodist, were no longer disposed

467

The Potter Homestead

to be friendly. As a follower of
Relly he was subjected to taunts,
sneers and petty persecutions of
every description. Finally the death
of his wife added to his many sor-
rows that of a desolate home, and
heart-sick and saddened, thinking to
find in solitude relief for his wounded
feelings, he left England with the
intention of burying himself in the
wilderness of the New World.

But John Murray could not so
easily escape his destiny. No sooner
had he landed on the shores of
America than he found himself con-
fronted by a man who claimed him
to be sent of God and ordained to a
task grander than any intrusted to a
human being since the days of the
apostles. He protested in vain. His
pleadings that he did not wish to
enter public life, that he was too
weak to endure the storm of perse-
cution certain to follow the preach-
ing of a new and unpopular doctrine,
468

that he must sail with the sloop
whose cargo had been placed in his
care, were of no avail. Thomas Pot-
ter solemnly declared that God
would never allow the wind to
change nor the sloop to sail out of
the inlet until Murray had delivered
his message in the chapel which had
so long awaited his coming.

Nor did the wind change, and
finally, late ■ Saturday afternoon,
Murray reluctantly yielded to what
seemed to him the direction of
Divine Providence and allowed Pot-
ter to send out his servants to give
notice of the morrow's service. The
planter's faith was not in vain. The
gospel proclaimed in the preacher's
sermon coincided with his own. In
rapturous joy as the speaker con-
cluded, Potter caught him in his
arms, exclaiming, "Now, now am I
willing to depart. Thou, O God,
hast granted me my desire."

Such, briefly told, is the strange

FOUNDING OF A FAITH

469

story of the inception of the Uni-
versalist Church in America. For,
although the earliest denomina-
tional organization was not formed
until several years later, it was on
Sunday, September 30, 1770, when
Murray first proclaimed his message
in the rude little chapel in the NeAV
Jersey wilderness, that the founda-
tions of the Universalist denomina-
tion were laid.

Both Potter and Murray regarded
all these events as manifest interpo-
sitions of the Divine will. Both
were firmly convinced that the wind
which bore the preacher to the New
Jersey shores was not accidental, but
providential ; that the hand of God
led him to the planter's humble
dwelling; that the little church was
erected by Divine command for the
very purpose which it served, and
that the planter was inspired to
recognize in the stranger from the
vessel the preacher whose coming he
had so long awaited. Nor to the end
of his long and active career did he
falter in the labors to which he be-
lieved himself divinely called. After
much itinerant work, especially in
New England, Murray organized in
Gloucester, Mass., the first Univer-
salist church in America. Some
years later he accepted an invitation
to the pastorate of a church in Bos-
ton. His labors there closed only
with the ending of his active career,
occasioned by a stroke of paralysis.
During the last years of his life he
was an invalid — "God's prisoner,"
as he quaintly called himself. His
death occurred in 1815, almost the
last words spoken in his delirium
being a favorite passage of Scrip-
ture : "Unto him shall all the gather-

ing of the nations be ; and his rest
shall be glorious, glorious, glorious."

Few church historians have ac-
corded to Murray the place among
the great religious leaders of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
which is rightfully his.

His writings evidence that he
possessed both scholarship and cul-
ture. Of his courage, sincerity and
uprightness of life there can be no
doubt. Dr. Leonard Woolsey Bacon
has paid a high tribute to his ability
as a theological disputant in his
"History of American Christianity."
Referring to Murray's argument,
that as Christ died for all, therefore
all are elected to ultimate justifica-
tion and salvation, he says : "It was
the pinch of this argument which
brought New England theologians,
beginning with Smalley and the sec-
ond Edwards, to the acceptance of
the rectoral theory of the atone-
ment." Skilful and valorous indeed
must have been the antagonist who,
single handed, forced the mighty
Edwards and his stern-willed host
to seek a new and less pregnable
position from which to defend them-
selves against the vigorous on-
slaughts of the new revolutionary.

This, with the further fact that he
was the acknowledged founder of
the Universalist denomination, a
sect which, though always small in
numbers, has exerted an influence
altogether disproportionate to its
numerical strength, attests the
claims of Murray's career upon the
interest of all students of American
church history, and suggests the
significance of the strange incidents
commemorated by the memorial re-
cently dedicated at Good Luck.

Dave Dalton's Lady

By Virna Sheard

HE stood on the busiest cor-
ner of one of the busiest
New York streets yet well
back and in shadow of the
bank, so that of the crowd only a
few noticed him, and fewer still
stopped to lighten his tray of its un-
interesting contents.

To the casual observer resting a
careless eye, on the small crooked
figure, pathetically still in a place
where all was life and movement, he
would have seemed a striking ex-
ample of the survival of the unfit-
test. Yet in that cramped body of
Dave Dalton's beat a heart worthy
of his forefathers, who had been
sons of battle for many generations.
It was by reason of their calling
probably that the lad had come upon
evil days, for the country does not
always remember her heroes' chil-
dren.

That, however, did not worry
Dave, and he stood quite cheerfully
through all weather, with his bur-
den of shoe strings, lamenting only,
when he sold so few, it was not pos-
sible to buy Chappy a good dinner.
For himself, — well, he was not often
hungry, — so it did not strike him
that his dinner mattered much. But
Chappy's appetite was in perennial
bloom, and all days were alike to
him, or rather he observed no fasts,
but kept the feasts religiously.
Chappy was the thing Dave loved
470

second best in the world. The
other was a person.

Every Wednesday and Saturday
at two exactly by the tower clock,
the boy could count on her coming
briskly around the corner and stop-
ping with a little whirl of skirts and
a sort of breathless haste beside
him. Then she would buy his shoe j
laces. Whatever she did with all
she bought was one of the mysteries,
for a person — even the most extrava-
gant— can only use a limited num-
ber, and they are not exactly the
kind of things to make presents of.
Still he did not trouble over that
either, — it did not seem worth while.
The girl always looked his stock
over carefully and made her choice
with red lips tightened up, and fluffy
yellow head a tiny bit to one side,
as though it were easier so to de-
cide whether she invested in leather
or mohair, with wire tags or shining
brass ones. When this was settled,
the hard roll tied up and the change
dropped into her purse, — which, by
the way, was a queer gold dangling
affair whose screwed-on top glit-
tered with letters set in frost-like
white stones that Dave concluded
couldn't be diamonds, — when this
was done the girl would smile down
into his face and flutter away, he
watching her with a dazzled look in
his eyes, till the crossing and re-
crossing throng hid her from view.

DAVE DALTON'S LADY

471

Chappy would watch also, stand-
ing up on his bandy hind legs and
pulling frantically at his short rope,
while an agonized desire to break
away and bear her company found
vent in short dismal yelps. Indeed,
it was only when he realized that
this fascinating young person was
entirely beyond reach and 'twould
be folly to pursue her, that he set-
tled back upon his haunches, and
with melancholy resignation re-
sumed his habitual watching for
flies, or fresh customers, or stray
legs — it would be difficult to say
which.

Every Wednesday and Saturday,
all through the sweet spring months
that even to the city brought a new
and joyous tide of life, the girl
came. And during the long hot
summer Dave watched the tower
clock on those charmed days, and
when the great hands crept, with
lingering, disheartening tardiness,
down to the half hour, up to the
quarter and then inch by inch to the
number he longed for, his pale face
would lighten and the sharp profile
turn towards the corner with an
alert expectancy stamped upon it.
But she always came, and the little
scene was enacted over and over
again with a freshness and vivacity
of enjoyment that would have led
one to suppose it were for the first
time.

Through the fall it was the same,
and now that the wheel of the year
had turned round to December, on
this the day before Christmas, Dave
watched the tower clock. He and
Chappy saw her at the same 'mo-
ment, although this time she came
from the opposite direction, and

with her was a man, a tall, middle-
aged man who walked stiffly. Chap-
py pranced about violently stretch-
ing the rope till it gave like elastic,
and fairly sprung him back on the
rebound. Dave kept his eyes on the
girl as she came towards him.

"I must have some shoe laces,
Uncle Jack," she said. "I always
buy them from this boy on my
practice days. We are very good
friends," nodding at Dave.

"Oh, yes, Miss, thank y'," an-
swered the boy flushing. "Down,
Chappy! Down." Then apologeti-
cally, "He ain't never had no man-
ners, Miss."

"Oh ! don't mind about that," she
said smiling. "I fancy he just wants
to let me know he likes me."

"He likes you all right," said
Dave. "Yes, I've got a dozen o'
that kind with the thin tags. They's
the best kind, too. Y' don't want
'em all, do you? Yes, I kin let y'
have 'em."

The man watched with a slightly
amused expression.

"Where do you live?" he asked,
as Dave wrapped up the parcel.

"Down to Sweeny's," replied the
boy. "It's called a model lodging
house. There's a big sign up out-
side. 'Beds, ten cents,' 'Biggest
dinner in town, ten cents,' 'Bath an'
hair cut, ten cents.' "

"Is it a comfortable place?"

"Well, it ain't a uncomfortable
one, sir, on a rough night. But I
goes there because there's some old
soldiers stops there off an' on. I
like soldiers."

"Do you, my lad?" returned the
other, a smile curving itself around
his set mouth. "Why?"

472

DAVE DALTON'S LADY

Into the little hunchback's worn
face flashed a strange expression,
and he seemed for half a moment
to straighten himself.

"Why?" he exclaimed, in his thin
reedy voice, — ''why ! I belongs to
'em. I'm an American, born here
you know, but my grandfather was
in the charge at Balaklava; he got a
medal afterwards. It only come the
day before he died. He was shot
most to pieces an' never had no
chance to wear it, you see. My
mother kept it an' give it to me, for
I'm' named after him, an' I have it
under my coat."

"Ah !" said the man, his eyes
lighting. "So your grandfather was
in that famous charge?"

"Yes, sir, an' his father fit at
Waterloo," said Dave, the color
bright in his cheeks.

"Waterloo !" cried the girl softly.
"Why you never told me about that.
Really, now I think of it, I don't
even know your name."

"It's Dave Dalton," he said.

"Now that's a good name," she
answered, stooping to pet Chappy,
"and there are those who might
envy you those grandfathers. To-
morrow is Christmas, Dave, and I
would like you to bring Chappy to
our house in the afternoon. I'm
going to decorate him with a new
collar. See, here is the address on
this card. And tell me, why do you
tie him up so fast? He is just wild
to get away !"

"Dat's so!" chimed in a small boy,
who was staring and listening.
"Cause why? If Dave was jest to
let him loose onct, he'd be into a
fight wid de next dog on de street.
But de cop'd run him into dat place

wot dey keep fer dogs who ain't
rich enough to buy tags. See?
Wouldn't he, Dave? He ain't got
no tag, has he, Dave? Say, de cop
only lets him stay round here 'cause
he's so woolly y' can't tell whether
he's got one onto him or not. Isn't
dat so, Dave?" he wound up, execut-
ing a double shuffle that sent his
"looped and windowed raggedness"
fluttering in the wind.

"That's so," said Dave.

Chappy beat a fierce tattoo on the
slippery asphalt with his dilapidated
tail.

The girl laughed lightly, and the
man's gray eyes twinkled.

"That is another fighter you have
an interest in," he said. "I like
the breed. Good by, and a merry
Christmas to you."

Dave looked after them, his face
lit up, his deep eyes shining, the
little card clutched in one thin hand.

"That's my lady!" he said, turn-
ing to the ragged boy. "The one
that buys the shoe strings."

The ragged boy hopped up and
down and winked one sharp eye.
"Say," he remarked, quieting down,
suddenly, "I knows her. She's de
one wot sings in that big church
round de corner with de cross on de
top. Dat's where I've seed her,
Dave. She'll be singing dere to-
morrow, sure, an' you and me can
take a sneak in an' listen — only
what'll you do with Chappy?
Look-a-here, couldn't y' tie him up
at Sweeny's — he'd be all right. Give
him his dinner. Fill him up chock
full, an' den tie him under yer bunk.
Eh?"

The little hunchback's eyes were
big and wistful.

DAVE DALTON'S LADY

473

"Do you think he'd stay, Jimsey?
I'd a heap rather take him along.
I don't never leave him."

"Do I think he'd stay?" rejoined
the other scornfully. "Well, yes;
I'd lather him if he didn't. Dat dog
ain't no good, he's so set on hisself.
Dere is two things you hadn't ever
ought to take to church, Dave, an'
dey is kids and dogs. Dey get
bounced every time. You see, dey
have no respect for de prayin' or
singin' or preachin', an' jines in any
old time. Now, are ye goin' to
leave him out of it, or ain't ye?1'

"I'll leave him," said the boy, re-
luctantly, rubbing his hand over
Chappy's rough head. "I want to
hear her sing — so I'll leave him. I
suppose it wouldn't do to have no
fuss. Look here, Jimsey," with swift
eagerness, "y' ain't makin' a mis-
take about her; you're sure she's the
one that sings?"

"Dead sure," retorted the other.
"I knowed her de moment she spoke.
I ain't goin' by her looks, though
dere all right, but by her voice. I'd
remember it anywheres I heard it,
and dere ain't two of 'em.''

"I don't see how you could be
sure," said Dave. "It wouldn't be
the same when she was singing."

The ragged boy chuckled. "Don't
worry about that, Dave. It's got de
same sound goin' through it, an' I
ain't makin' no mistake. Why, one
Sunday when I was at dat church,
hid in one of de dark pews, where
none of them chaps in long skirts
can spy ye, she sang, 'Je"roosh"e"
lem, de Golden.' Dat's de way it be-
gan, anyway. It was warm in there,
Dave, an' a spicy smell kept on
floatin' up, like there was cakes

bakin' somewhere. The lights flick-
ered over where the big cross
stands, wid — wid — Him — on it, an'
de organ wid de great yeller pipes
was goin' — boom — boom — boom —
like waves out on de beach at Coney
Island. An' she was singin'. I
wisht ye'd been there, Dave."

"Perhaps she'll sing that song to-
morrow," he answered. "Yes, I'll go
along with you, Jimsey. I'll tie
Chappy up an' then afterwards we
will go back and get him an' take
him along to this place what has the
number on the ticket."

"She never asked me," said the
ragged boy.

"That don't count," said Dave.
"She smiled at you."

"You bet she did," he returned,
"an' she smiled at you, too, didn't
she, Chappy? Well, I'll be up in de
mornin' fer ye, Dave. So long."

The boy stood gently offering his
wares to the passers-by, though peo-
ple didn't seem to want shoe laces
that afternoon. Now and then
some one dropped a bit of silver on
the tray and went past quickly, but
the lad did not wish for such offer-
ings, and while he knew they were
kindly meant, they hurt him. Every
piece of money given so would have
been returned but that the people
were so quickly gone. Always he
would shake his head, and some-
times even cry, "No! No!" but they
did not care or understand.

At evening a soft snow was
falling, and, seen by the great sway-
ing electric lights at the corner, it
looked to Dave like a shower of sil-
ver flakes. He gazed at the marvel-
lous feathery wheels and stars
caught on his rough jacket, and

474

DAVE DALTON'S LADY

thought how beautiful they were.
His little crooked body was chilled
through, but his heart was warm
and happy, and to such a heart the
whole world seems bright. "To-
morrow ! To-morrow !" he kept
thinking. "To-morrow he would
see her again, even perhaps hear her
sin°r." Since his mother's death he
had been quite alone in the world,
so he the oftener said to himself that
he belonged to those men who had
died fighting. He was such a little
fellow that the fight for daily bread
took all his strength, but they had
been strong and mighty and cour-
ageous, and the thought of them sent
a warm flood to his heart.

The Christmas season had not
been one of festivity to Dave for
many a year, and he had come to re-
gard it as a period when those others
only, the rich of the earth, .had a
joyful time. For Chappy and him it
meant long, bitter nights, short,
dark days and unlimited shivering.

On this Christmas eve, though,
when he went home to Sweeny's he
lay long awake, like many another
lad in the city, who could not sleep
for very gladness. Children borrow
no trouble, and one happy hour in
sight is worth to them a heaven in
the problematical future ; so when
at last Dave slept, his sharp, white
face pressed against Chappy's wool-
ly coat wore a smile.

As the mellow bells of St.
Michael's rocked the steeple with
their Christmas ringing, two odd
little figures stole into the church
and slipped warily into a high pew
in one dusky corner. The ragged
boy had been no false prophet ; for
there were the yellow mystical

lights on the high altar shining
down till they touched the sorrow-
ful figure of the Christ. There were
the dark, silent men moving about,
and through the aisles floated a
strange odor, heavy and sweet.
Yes, and the organ pealed with that
muffled fulness of sound one hears
in the great waves after a storm,
when they break upon a sanded
beach. Presently the people gath-
ered till the vast building was full.

Then suddenly a voice rose in joy-
ful song.

Somewhere in the dimness of
Dave Dalton's memory was the
blurred and shadowy remembrance
of a story of shepherds who watched
their flocks upon the star-lit hills
in a far away country, and of a
company of angels who floated
down upon the wings of the night
singing, "Peace on earth."

It seemed that he, too, heard the
angel — that bright one who stood
apart from the others and said,
"Behold I bring you good tidings of
great joy !" for it was what the won-
derful voice sang now.

The two lads gazed up into the
organ loft and there they saw a girl
standing by herself — and she was
singing.

When it ended the ragged boy
caught Dave by the sleeve and
spoke in a hoarse whisper: "Ain't
dat great?" he said, his common
little face shining. "Say, Dave,
don't dat jest give you a queer
feelin'. I wouldn't like to hear dat
if I was in dis yer place alone at
midnight, you bet! It's too much
like a spirit, an' it'd rattle me to hear
it in de dark."

But the boy answered nothing,

DAVE DALTON'S LADY

475

only watched the figure he knew till
it was lost in the gloom of the dis-
tant gallery. They waited quietly
through the short service — which
was largely incomprehensible to
them — hoping for "Jerusalem, the
Golden," but she sang no more.
However, as they followed in the
wake of the congregation down the
aisle, she, leaning over the railing
above, saw them and smiled a
recognition.

"Look up," whispered the ragged
one, catching her eye first. "Cracky,
Dave!" jerking him round, "she's
noddin' of her head to us — she is,
honest." So the little hunchback
returned her smile across the wide
and empty church.

It was about two o'clock in the
afternoon that a diminutive tat-
tered boy mounted the steps of a
house and rang the bell. He held a
card tightly in one grimy hand, and
he often glanced from it to the
bright brass number above. His
face looked scared, while now and
then as he stood waiting his limbs
shook with a chill. A maid opened
the door and lifted her eyebrows at
him by way of ascertaining his
business, but he walked in and past
her, not heeding the unspoken ques-
tion.

"My goodness ! Look at him,"
exclaimed the picturesque maiden.
"Such cheek! You'd better trot
out, boy, as quick as you came in,
or I'll call some one."

"I wisht you would," he
answered, glancing about, "for I'm
in a awful hurry. I want de lady
wot sings. De one wot buys Dave
Dalton's shoe strings, — an' I wants
her quick. Catch on?"

At the moment there was a rust-
ling of soft skirts, and Dave Dal-
ton's lady came swiftly down the
hall, followed by the tall man, who
walked stiffly. The boy ran to her.

"There's — there's been a axident,"
he said, "an' I come to get ye to go
along wid me to de 'Mergency."

"Why, you poor little fellow,"
said the girl. "Who has been hurt?
Any one I know?"

"You bet," he cried. "Dave's been
hurt, and Chappy's been hurt, too,
some; but Dave's the worst. Dere
was a row down to Sweeny's. You
know Sweeny, don't you?" to the
man. "No? Well, he was a prize
fighter onct, — a regular trained one.
He stood to all de best of 'em — but
now he's too heavy. Well, 'twas
like this. Us fellers we went to
church to hear you," with a nod to-
wards the girl, "to hear you sing,
an' Dave he tied up Chappy, 'cause
we'd a been hustled if we'd a-took
him along. When we got back to
de house, why he'd been howlin'
some, an' jest as we come in Sweeny
was a-givin' him a thrashin' wid a
cane."

"Yes !" questioned the man.
"Yes?"

The boy's eyes flashed. "Say,"
he exclaimed, "I wisht ye could a
seen Dave ! He leapt right at dat
feller an' jerked de cane away;
then he jumped up an' hit him
acrost de face wid it. A big ridge
riz up where it lit."

"The son of his grandfather !"
said the man.

"Oh !" cried the girl, her hands
clinging together. "Oh, Uncle Jack,
I'm afraid that lodging-keeper did
something dreadful to him."

476

DAVE DALTON'S LADY

The ragged boy shivered.
"Sweeny?" he said. "Why, Sweeny
jest caught holt o' Dave like as he
was a rabbit, an' he t'rew him down
hard. He struck onto his head an'
first he didn't know nothin', then
after when he come to at de 'Mer-
gency he kept on askin' fer yov I
wisht ye'd come."

"Wait a moment," replied the
girl. "I will go. You'll come, too,"
turning to the man.

"I rather think I'd better," he
answered.

Half an hour later the three en-
tered a ward in the Emergency
Hospital. On a pallet lay the little
hunchback, and upon his face was
the mark of coming death.

A woolly dog, whose tail beat
faintly, but steadily, was sitting at
the foot of the bed. He pricked up
his ears as they approached, but did
not move. The house surgeon went
forward to meet them.

"There is an internal injury," he
said, in his low trained voice. "The
lad is going very fast."

Dave looked up adoringly at the
girl who stood beside him, and
smiled as she patted his hand.

"You've been awful kind," he
said. "I wanted to see you. There's
two things I want to give you.
Here," fumbling at his collar and
pulling out a bit of leather shoe
string, — "here, tied to this, is the
medal — he — he — hadn't no chance to
wear. It ain't an American one, but
it's all right an' you kin have it if y'
like; an' there's Chappy, , y' can
have him, too."

"I'll take good care of him," said the
girl softly; "very good care, Dave."

"Why," he answered, speaking
painfully, "I — knowed y' would.
There's another thing. I guess as
they won't let me in — the angels.
Y' see I come to this by sort of
Hghtin\ an' they don't let no fighters
in — 'cept soldiers. Do they?"

"Greater love hath no man than
this, that he lays down his life for
his friend," said the man. "Chap-
py was your friend, lad."

Dave looked up and glanced from
one to another, restlessly. Then he
turned his deep eyes upon the pretty
figure by his side. "You've been
awful kind," he said, "awful kind.
We used to watch for you Wednes-
days an' Saturdays, Chappy an'
me ;" and as he spoke he drifted
away into the sleep that is unbroken
by dreams.

Then the girl with tender fingers
untied the knotted lace and drew
the medal from where it had rested.

The man exclaimed softly as he
saw the bronze cross with its laurel-
wreathed bar and faded red ribbon.
"The cross !" he said. "Why, Let-
ty, it is the Victoria Cross!"

"Yes," answered the girl, looking
at it with dim eyes as it lay in the
palm of her hand, — "yes, Uncle Jack
— the Victoria Cross — and it has
been worn by one who was not un-
worthy. Come," she said to the
ragged boy, "come with us."

Then she gathered the little shak-
ing dog in her arms, and they went
together out into the Christmas
sunshine.

A Scion of New England

By Edward O. Grisbrook

THE spirit and influence of
New England have not
been limited to the Com-
monwealths of the Repub-
lic. There is not a state of the Union
but what has received generous con-
tributions of her splendid brawn
and ambitious spirit. But New
England has done more than this,
she has stamped the impress of her
character with indelible lines upon
the life and thought of a people
whose homes lie north of her bounr
daries. The section of country
known as the Eastern Townships,
forming part of the Province of
Quebec in Canada, was settled by
people from New England, and is
to-day occupied by their descend--
ants. At the time of the settlement
the people were called by the
Canadians, "United Empire Loyal-
ists." In New England they bore
the opprobrious title of Tory. One
need hardly be told that these peo-
ple are directly descended from New
England stock. Their family names,
customs of living, manners of speech
have earned for them the title of
"Yankee Canadians." To wander
up and down their streets or about
their farms, to sit with them at their
firesides and partake of their un-
stinted hospitality, is to feel you are
with your own kindred and in famil-
iar places. The "line" which sep-
arates the two countries is indeed,

in more than sentiment, only
imaginary. The historian tells us
that it is only somewhat more than
a hundred years since their ancestors
and ours lived side by side in their
New England homes.

Let us glance back into the con-
ditions of our country that made
this exodus necessary. The terms
Whig and Tory were transplanted
from the Old World into New Eng-
land, the Whigs contending for con-
stitutional liberty, the Tories for
royal prerogative and arbitrary
power. Thus at an early date New
England was divided into two fac-
tions and the division was accentu-
ated by the attitude of the British
government to the American col-
onies. During the Revolutionary
struggle the Whigs had not only
the British soldiers but the Tory ele-
ment to contend with ; so much so
that a man's foes were apt to be of
his own household. In many places
the two parties were nearly bal-
anced in number. Boston was
strong Tory ground and because of
the shelter afforded to British sym-
pathizers many fled there during the
conflict. The Whigs had every
reason to fear the opposite party,
for many of the prominent men
holding the principal offices were
Tories ; but public opinion in the
colony soon brought the Tory ele-
ment into line ; and those who were

477

478

A SCION OF NEW ENGLAND

willing to accept the newly estab-
lished government were permitted
to live in peace. Many of the
Tories were intractable and unyield-
ing. They were harassed and made
to feel their disloyalty. They were
driven from their homes, impris-
oned and their property confiscated.
Sheldon tells us in his history of
Deerfield, that "some time after the
war, about thirty of the leading
Tories of the Connecticut Valley
sent a petition to Lord Dorchester,
modestly asking the grant of thirty
townships of land, south of the St.
Lawrence, adjoining the Vermont
line, each to be six miles square,
this to be in consideration of their
former suffering and their present
persecutions." Whether this petition
directly brought about the following
results, I am unable to ascertain;
but this territory was given for this
very purpose later. George III is-
sued through Lord Dorchester,
governor of the colony, a proclama-
tion inviting his loyal subjects in
the United States to make Canada
their home. In this effort of the
British government, provision was
made for their reception and settle-
ment; and for the mitigation of their
trials and privations, they were pre-
sented with seed, farms, implements
and tools for building purposes,
food and clothing for a year or two
after settling. To make good in
part their losses the British govern-
ment also voted fifteen million dol-
lars to be divided among the incom-
ing settlers, and gave munificent
grants of forest land.

In consulting historical records of
the Eastern Townships, the part of
the province assigned to these

Tories, we find the original grants
of lands bearing dates 1794 to 1796.
These grants were given to New
England settlers from the following
towns : Woodbury, Connecticut ;
Sheffield, Salem, Barre, Williams-
town, Deerfield, Colraine, Sandis-
field, Petersham, in Massachusetts,
and Sanbornton, Canaan, Derry,
Litchfield, Somersworth, Hanover,
in New Hampshire. In Vermont
such places as Bradford, Newbury,
Swanton, Springfield and Benning-
ton and many others.

The exodus of this people from
their ancestral homes to their north-
ern exile forms one of the most
thrilling chapters of our history.
Longfellow has made immortal the
trials of the early Puritans in their
exile in the Bay Colony ; also he has
touched our hearts in the pathetic
story of "Evangeline," with the sor-
rows of the Acadians in their ruth-
less separations ; but the hardships
and vicissitudes of these Loyalists
have yet to be sung. They changed
flags because they refused to partici-
pate in the cause of the Revolution,
and because they clung to the idea
of the unity of the empire. When
independence was secured, these
conscientious men of Puritan stock
and principle, who had stood for
what they considered a just and
righteous cause, found themselves
in a hopeless minority, suffering ob-
loquy, and subjected to the indigni-
ties of the victors. Rather than live
under these humiliating circum-
stances, some returned to England,
but most of them sought new homes
for themselves in Canada. It is es-
timated that about ten thousand
emigrated to Acadia; many settled

A SCION OF NEW ENGLAND

479

in Ontario about the shores of the
bay of Quinte, an arm of Lake On-
tario ; others chose the Niagara dis-
trict and about twenty thousand
settled on lands adjacent to the bor-
ders of New England.

The steps which these loyal sons
to the British cause took cannot be
sufficiently understood or explained
by the odium and hatred with which
they were met by their fellow coun-
trymen. We cannot expect to find
a true estimate of men and the mo-
tives which controlled their actions
at a time when the tide of feeling
was at its height. Neither are we
to judge men of a hundred years
ago by the standard of to-day. We
must not overlook the limited edu-
cational advantages of our early
fathers, whose , feelings and actions
were not restrained by refined
tastes which are the fruit of liberal
educational privileges. Time, with
her kind hand, has rubbed out the
harsh lines, softened the asperities
and thrown over the events of that
day the mantle of charity. Their
conservatism, or call it patriotism,
took the form which forced them to
cling to their king and motherland,
with all its scenes and the memories
of dear "old home," and loved ones
across the sea. Our Whig ancestors
loved liberty, fought fiercely for
freedom. It was the same passion
which burned in the heart of Tory
and Whig, but they knew it not. To
the one it was devotion to the insti-
tutions of the past as the only hope
of national safety; to the other it
was devotion to the idea of liberty,
freedom to think and act according
to enlightened judgment, without
which privilege no institution, how-

ever old, could be safe. Whatever
the verdict of history, whether of
praise or blame, we cannot help ad-
mire their sterling integrity and
loyalty to their ideas of allegiance.
They were both equally patriots, the
one for the idea of republican insti-
tutions, the other for king and
country. No hardship daunted, no
suffering or loss, no enduring of
privation shook their steadfast loyal-
ty to flag and government.

It is easy to see that patriotism
was their strongest motive, -for how
else can we account for those who
stood side by side in the French
and Indian wars turning about to
face each other, friend and relatives
fighting against each other, leaving
their comfortable homes to exile
• themselves in the wilderness of
Canada? It can also be said that, in
all probability, they who had' such
a hatred for republican principles
could not conceive that the new re-
public could permanently maintain
itself, but that it would be harassed
by frequent wars with other coun-
tries, and England particularly. To
move northward was to move into
safety as England had lately ac-
quired British North America, and
they could feel secure under the pro-
tection of the British government.
The northward look could not at its
best have held out a very pleasant
and welcome prospect. They could
scarcely have forgotten the shriek
and war whoop of the Canadian In-
dian in his fiendish work with toma-
hawk and torch among their New
England homes, and the prospect of
coming into closer relations with
him could not have been an inviting
prospect. And then there were the

480

A SCION OF NEW ENGLAND

French people, the old bitter feuds
could hardly be wiped out, who had
led the Indians in their murderous
assault upon the New England vil-
lages. The scenes of Deerfield,
Haverhill and Hadley were still
fresh in their memories. The treaty
of Paris which surrendered the
French power in Canada to the
British had only been signed in
1760, and as the English govern-
ment was established throughout
Canada, the Indians were held in
close subjection and confined to
their own reserves ; but the hated
French were still there and must be
their neighbors, whose language was
an unknown tongue, and whose re-
ligion to the Puritan was Paganism.
Having these facts in mind, the
choice of voluntary banishment
must have been a purely patriotic
one.

The grants of land given by the
British government to the Tories
stretch southeasterly from the St.
Lawrence and are on "three sides
fringed by the fiefs of Louis XIV"
and on the southern side by the
borders of New England. This tract
of country is considered the garden
of the Province of Quebec. In
many respects the physical features
of this section are not unlike New-
England and altogether different
from the flat clay lands which were
already occupied by the early
French settlers. The characteristic
thrift, energy and industry of these
"Yankee Canadians" have wrested
from the primeval forest their beau-
tiful homes and villages and their
cultivated and productive farms.

It is a little more than three cen-
turies and a half since Captain

Jacques Cartier, the famous seaman
of St. Malo, brought the touch of
refined civilization to this barbarous
wilderness. His comrades were the
young French noblemen of the
Court of Francis I, with romantic
dreams of adventure and gold, aspir-
ing to establish in the New World
the brilliant, gay, luxurious court
life of that period. Those argonauts
and their subsequent followers did
not wish to act the part of the
pioneer, but to suddenly amass
wealth. They consequently chose
the gentler shores of the St. Law-
rence, where they could readily
avail themselves of the facilities of
trading with the Indian ; during the
summer months buying furs and in
the winter returning to France
with their laden ships yielding them
an immense revenue. Thus we find
them choosing to be traders instead
of settlers, not wishing to push into
the interior and claim the fertile
lands which could only be reclaimed
from an unbroken wilderness of
forest. It may have been they
dreaded to encounter the Indian in
his home, and doubtless their free-
hearted and socially inclined natures
rendered them unable to endure the
isolation necessary in going into the
interior and taking up pioneer life.
The course of the early settlement
of New France was therefore well
defined along the shores of the St.
Lawrence and the smaller rivers.

Writers and moralists of New
England history find in the ravages
of disease among the early Indians
along the eastern Atlantic coast a
divine finger pointing a place for the
Pilgrim Puritan to build his home
and rear a nation. Equally true

A SCION OF NEW ENGLAND

481

does it seem that a portion of land,
the finest and richest of the Prov-
ince of Quebec, was being reserved
by the same divine hand for the
sons of their descendants, whose
progressive ways had already brought
marvellous changes to pass in
the opening up of eastern Canada.
The British government showed
prescience in inviting those practi-
cal, sturdy settlers to enter the
newly acquired territory, with a con-
quered people, ignorant of English
ideals and spirit. It is true that the
two races, foreign in speech and re-
ligion, have not assimilated, yet
their children have grown up side
by side, the English drawing nearer
to their ideals, while the French,
surrendering neither language nor
faith, have progressed during the
past hundred years towards Anglo-
Saxon thought and spirit because
they have enjoyed the privilege of
constitutional government.

It is impossible in these days of
rapid transit to realize what suffer-
ing and privations the Loyalists un-
derwent in their trip northward.
They followed the old war trail
which the Indian and French had
used in the atrocities of Deerfield,
Hadley and Haverhill. Slow and
painful must have been the progress.
They reached Canada, the land of
their hope, by way of the Connecti-
cut, White and Winooski Rivers, to
the head waters of Lake Cham-
plain. This journey took considera-
ble time, as they were forced to cut
their way through thick forest and
camp at night, weary and sore of
limb, amid the solitude. They be-
came versed in woodcraft, inured to
privation and danger, supplying

themselves with food from forest
and stream. They were undaunted
by frost or snow. Such men only
need a leader to go anywhere into
the untrodden depths of a new
world and undertake anything pos-
sible to human strength and cour-
age. •

The village of Phillipsburg in the
township of St. Armand, situated
on the bay of Missisquoi, an arm of
Lake Champlain, is one of the first
points of settlement by the Loyal-
ists, as the records of the grants
given by the government bear date
of 1784. A chastened feeling of sad-
ness fills one as he passes along the
silent streets of this village, show-
ing many marks of age in dilapi-
dated and deserted buildings. An
old church with its windows and
doors barred, bearing the ravages of
time, stands silent witness of a day
of better things. Memories awaken
the sleeping echoes of the past,
when the seats were filled with de-
scendants of New England Puritans.
The tide of progress has moved on,
the village being a frontier settle-
ment; to-day it is only visited by
the summer boarder and the lover
of the historic past. Here was the
first touch of New England amid
the untrodden forest ; here the pio-
neer's axe rang out far and wide ;
here the log house replaced the lord-
ly pine.

The plan of settlement and the
manner in which the lands were se-
cured from the British government,
according to records, are as follows :
Companies of associates were
formed, to whom the townships
were granted. "Any individual of
respectability who had sustained

482

A SCION OF NEW ENGLAND

losses from his loyalty to the gov-
ernment, or otherwise merited re-
ward could, by pursuing a pre-
scribed course in company with a
certain number of others of un-
doubted loyalty, obtain a grant of
five-sevenths of a township. The
individual who took the most active
part in procuring this grant and
bore the expenses was nominated
leader." The course pursued was
substantially as follows : the leader,
with other individuals who were
called associates, presented a peti-
tion to the government in which the
claims of the petitioners were set
forth and the tract of land prayed
for described. The grant was made
only on condition that the leader
in each of the associates should take
the oath of allegiance, and them-
selves, their heirs or assigns should
make actual settlement. This plan
was followed more or less closely
in all cases. To each settler was
given two hundred acres, mostly of
virgin forest, with seed, implements
and clothes. Each son coming of
age received an additional two hun-
dred, and each daughter when mar-
ried. The first thing was to clear
sufficient ground and by felling trees
the home was built and the stock
housed. It is surprising what the
energy of those hardy men accom-
plished. To-day you look over their
beautiful farms, soil well tilled, for
a large part not yet in need of patent
fertilizers. It must have taken a
vast amount of toil to accomplish
such astonishing results. The small-
er and consequently the poorer
farmer is everywhere in evidence,
still you are greeted with large
brick and stone residences, sur-

rounded by handsome grounds, well
trimmed lawns, displaying not only
thrift and energy, but elegance and
luxury. Within these homes you
meet the quiet reserve, dignified
elegance and grace of manner fa-
mous in English tradition ; also the
atmosphere of democratic hospital-
ity, that preferably extends the hand
to character rather than blood, that
delights in the recognition of hard
earned ability and manhood. It is
delightful of a summer day to drive
over the shady roads, through an
undulating country, with here and
there a charming bit of scenery, just
the spot for a contemplative spirit.
Then, with a sudden bend in the
road, there is spread out before your
feet a panoramic view of pictur-
esque mountain clad with virgin
timber and lake embowered as a sil-
ver jewel.

A popular fallacy, which displays
our ignorance of Canadians, gener-
ally takes for granted that they are
French or of French ancestry. It is
true that the larger portion of the
population of the Province of Que-
bec is French, and large numbers of
them come annually to our manu-
facturing centres, flocking into our
cotton and paper mills and working
in our factories. But we must not
overlook the fact that there are
every year many young men who
come to Boston and other of our
large cities, seeking the larger op-
portunity for their ambitious spirit,
who are lineal descendants of the
Pilgrim and Puritan and are the
best blood of the Eastern Town-
ships.

The making of pearl ash was the
first occupation of the pioneers.

A SCION OF NEW ENGLAND

48.3

Vast tracts of forest land were con-
verted into ashes, then leached to
make potash. What ruthless waste !
But nature was prodigal in her gifts
to these sons of want and toil.
They built their log shanties and
gathered of an evening around the
burning logs in the fireplace. They
had their "bees" and "huskings," and
the spirit of mutual helpfulness
smoothed over many a hard place.
"Going to mill" recalls thrilling tales
of romantic adventure. Their fa-
thers had endured similar trials in
their New England homes. It was
not an uncommon experience for
one to carry his grain on his back
for twenty miles and return with his
grist; but as the country grew older
and more developed, the farmer was
seen astride his horse with his grist.
Winter came upon them with relent-
less fury. Deep snow hampered
them, but in contending with diffi-
culties men of nerve and endurance
and character were being made. It
is not to be wondered at that the
sons of these heroic sires are proud
of their ancestry and point to what
they did and rejoice in the heritage
bequeathed to them.

The loyalty of the Eastern Town-
ships has never been questioned, and
in the War of 1812 their services
were of great value to the land of
their adoption. The settlements
along the shores of Missisquoi Bay
felt the realities of war. When the
plan was made to invade and cap-
ture Canada by attacking Montreal,
the commercial capital of the
Dominion, these settlers from New
England bore the brunt of the re-
sistance. In this war Massachu-
setts, Connecticut and Rhode Island

refused to participate because the
real purpose of the struggle was not
against what one of their orators
called "the harmless colonists of
Canada." On October 24, 1813, one
of the most important battles of the
war was fought near Chateauquay
River, and where strategy and skill
concealed the great disparity of
numbers. The settlers, with the
help of four hundred soldiers under
Colonel de Salaberry, defeated a
division of American forces number-
ing 3,500 led by General Hampton
and Colonel Purdy. This defeat
frustrated the plans for the capture
of Montreal.

Again in 1837 and 1838 they ren-
dered conspicuous service to the
Dominion authorities in assisting in
suppressing what is called in Cana-
dian history the Papineau-Macken-
zie rebellion. William Lyon Mac-
kenzie took charge of the rebellion
in the Province of Ontario, and
Papineau, a French agitator, led the
movement in the Province of Que-
bec. With Papineau was associated
Dr. Wolfred Nelson. Together they
stirred up the racial animosities and
prejudices of the French, who as a
conquered people were inclined to
be restive under British rule. It
was at the time of the advent of
Victoria to the throne. According
to time honored custom the Roman
Catholics through the province met
to celebrate her accession, but a
widespread spirit of disloyalty,
sown by these leaders, was gener-
ally manifested among the French
by a refusal to chant the Te Deum in
honor of the young queen, or to
offer prayers for the royal family,
or to take the oath of allegiance.

484

A SCION OF NEW ENGLAND

The presence and services of the
Loyalists in the province were of
great value to the government and
held the seditious movement in
check. An engagement took place
near Missisquoi Bay, not far from
Phillipsburg, between these Loyal-
ists under Captain Kemp, and the
rebels under Gaynon of L'Arcadie,
in which the insurgents were com-
pletely routed.

In 1865 occurred the "Fenian
Raid." The Fenians were a brother-
hood of Irish settlers who had col-
lected at various points in New
York state near the Canadian boun-
dary, and whose design was to
suddenly attack Canada as a part of
their sympathy with an Ireland
freed from Britain. The movement
was easily resisted and overcome ;
but it put the Loyalists of the East-
ern Townships to great expense and
annoyance.

The Canadian government has al-
ways appreciated the conspicuous
service these English pioneers have
rendered, and the present happy and
united state of affairs in the Prov-
ince of Quebec is in no small meas-
ure due to them. The French, con-
stitutionally impulsive, are easily
stirred into unrest and discord; the
self-denying, hearty patriotism of
the settlers has been in the past the
leaven in the lump. To-day, of
course, with Sir Wilfred Laurier, a
Frenchman, premier of the Domin-
ion, it is different, and they are very
loyal to English institutions and
government, and are taking their
part in the building up and shaping
the destiny of Canada into a strong,
united nation.

It is very interesting to an Ameri-

can to find in the Eastern Town-
ships so many G. A. R. veterans.
They are everywhere. During the
Civil War, large numbers of the
young men, descended from those
early New England families, en-
listed on the side of the North, and
while many having gained the right
of citizenship through their services,
never returned to Canada, many
did, and to-day are representative of
the ideas and feelings which bind the
two countries together. This love,
principally for New England, is felt
very strongly in the Eastern Town-
ships, especially among the older
and influential families. And while
there are not among the citizens of
Canada a more loyal people to Brit-
ish ideals and constitution, yet they
are through relatives, tradition and
trade strongly sympathetic with our
institutions. It is very rare to find
a family that is not in some way
related to New England; either some
member of the household has mi-
grated to one of the larger cities or,
having gone in younger years and
been successful, has returned to
dwell near the scenes of childhood.
The religious life presents a curi-
ous anomaly to the student of his-
toric faiths. Through ancestry and
tradition these people were Puritans,
yet it is surprising to see the largest
and most influential congregations in
their towns are of the Church of Eng-
land. Other denominations worship
in more modest and unpretentious
structures. Why did not the Loyal-
ists adhere to the faith of their an-
cestry? The manner in which they
left New England may in part ac-
count for it. Their patriotic feel-
ings overcame their religious ideas

A SCION OF NEW ENGLAND

485

and beliefs. But another reason
presents even a greater claim as
cause for this. In looking into the
religious history of these townships
we find that an Episcopal mission
Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel was the first religious body
in England to respond to the needs
of these new settlers. They sent
their missionaries into the back-
woods as early as 1799, and it is a
beautiful example of Christian char-
ity which lightens up those early
days of schism and bitter sectarian
controversy when the' Puritan was
hunted and persecuted through the
misguided zeal and bigotry of early
Episcopalians in England. In 1807
the Rev. C. J. Stewart was sent out.
This devoted man was the fifth son
of the Earl of Galloway, a graduate
of Oxford, reared in luxury, learned
and wise, but not above the humble
mode of living of the pioneers. He
gained their confidence and love by
his unselfish and indefatigable la-
bors, and by his sweet charity and
lofty Christian devotion to their
needs. The name of Bishop Stew-
art is a priceless heirloom of which
the Episcopal Church may well be
proud.

There are very few large centres
of population in the Eastern Town-
ships. The people are principally
farmers, well-to-do, cultivating large
areas, mostly for pasturage and hay,
and their products being chiefly
dairy. There are over 500 butter
and cheese factories, whose product
secures the highest prices in the
English market, although our high
tariff has closed our doors to ,them.
Maple sugar of the very highest
quality and excellence is manufac-

tured extensively. Fruit is also
grown in large quantities. The city
of Sherbrooke, founded in 1796, and
named after Sir John Sherbrooke,
the governor of Canada, with a
population of 11,000, equally divided
between French and English, is con-
sidered the metropolis. It is 100
miles from Montreal and 127 from
Quebec, and is the third largest city
of the province. It has superb
water power, estimated at 4,200
horse power, of which 1,500 is not
utilized, derived from a long series
of falls in the Magog River, in the
immediate vicinity of the city. The
largest woollen mill in Canada is lo-
cated here. Its products are chiefly
tweeds, worsted goods and rugs,
which are distributed from Vancou-
ver to Halifax. Mining machinery,
too, is very extensively manufac-
tured, together with paper and
paper machinery and electrical
appliances. The exports to the
United States alone in 1898 were
$400,000.

Granby is another place of manu-
facturing importance, a very busy,
progressive town of about 4,000,
that is coming rapidly to the front.
Cowansville,Coaticook, Bedford and
Magog are also busy and growing
towns.

The Eastern Townships are very
rich in natural resources. Magnifi-
cent timber covers the mountains
and a large area of the valleys, while
the mineral wealth, which only of
late has begun to be realized, in-
cludes copper, asbestos, chromic
iron and lime, while with partial
success workings have been made
for gold, silver and galena. The
copper mines are mostly in the vi-

486

A SCION OF NEW ENGLAND

cinity of Waterville, where the an-
nual output is 50,000 tons.

For many years the internal ad-
ministration of the Eastern Town-
ships was carried on at Sherbrooke,
until they were broken up into mu-
nicipalities, or the town system,
conferring upon each township juris-
diction in its own affairs under the
general legislative authority of the
province. These townships are
grouped into districts; three coun-
ties forming a. district. Each coun-
ty sends one representative to the
provincial government at Quebec
and one to Ottawa, the seat of the
Dominion government. Each dis-
trict has a senator at Ottawa and a
member in the Legislative Assem-
bly, which is really a Provincial
Senate.

The people's feeling of loyalty
and pride for the Townships is
embodied in several of their insti-
tutions. For example, they have
their own banking system, called
"The Eastern Township Bank,"
which has its head office in Sher-
brooke and branches in all the vil-
lages. This institution has a paid-
up capital of $1,500,000, with a re-
serve fund of $835,000, giving an
available capital of $2,335,000, and
declaring dividends at the rate of
Sy2 per cent per annum. Then, too,
there is the Agricultural Associa-
tion, more familiarly known as
"Canada's Great Eastern Exhibi-
tion," made up of the principal pub-
lic men and farmers, and incor-
porated in 1885. The association
claims to be second only to the lead-
ing one in Toronto, which represents
the entire Dominion. It has held
thirteen successful exhibitions, call-

ing together each year a large repre-
sentation of the farmers and manu-
facturers, and inspiring by friendly
rivalry a progressive spirit. The
attendance at these fairs has
reached as high as 20,000 in a day.

No country affords a more de-
lightful climate during the summer
months, and this fact is rapidly at-
tracting an increasing number of
tourists. The light, dry air has led
many suffering from lung troubles
away from the fogs and more humid
atmosphere of New England, and
even the winters are not severe, the
mercury seldom falling as low as
in many places in central and north-
ern Vermont. These towns seem
to lie in a warm belt, favored by
currents of air which temper the
rigors of winter. The summers are
perfectly delightful. Lake Mem-
phremagog, the queen of a most
charming lake system, is a veritable
tourists' paradise, surrounded by
heavy woods, and its shores dotted
with summer cottages. "From the
heights we look out upon scenes of
many a wild expedition, romantic
or tragic. Yonder is the late gate-
way through which the fierce Abena-
kis so often carried desolation to the
heart of Massachusetts. It was
through those maple woods on our
west flank that 'Roger's Rangers'
in 1759 swept like a whirlwind of
flame, to exterminate the whole
brood of tigers that had so long
harried the homes of New Eng-
land."

You seem to hear amid the rustle
of the leaves the march of the invis-
ible feet of those who counted not
their lives dear, whose sacrifices
made possible the present.

Milfofd, Across the Charles

Milford and Hopedale

By Lewis G. Wilson

UNTIL 1886 the two towns
of Milford and Hopedale
composed a single munici-
pality and they are, respec-
tively, the daughter and grand-
daughter of "Mother Mendon," whose
white steeple on Mendon Hill over-
looks a wide area in the southern
part of Worcester County. Historically
these three towns are as much one
as, nowadays, they are industrially,
closely and intimately associated.
Separated by distances of only one
and two miles, and connected by trol-
ley lines, the great shops of the
Draper Company midway between
Milford and Mendon form an indus-
trial centre for thousands of work-
mien who come daily to Hopedale
from all the region round about.

A stranger approaching this dale of
perpetual enterprise from Milford on
the east can hardly believe himself
within the limits of a manufacturing
town, for the neat and substantial
dwelling houses, beautiful villas and
finely macadamized streets on the
way are more characteristic of a
residential neighborhood. And if he
drives down from the peaceful old
hill slopes of Mendon upon the
west along the ancient carriage road
he will catch glimpses, merely, of the
huge machine shops, while all about
there are the quiet homes and public
buildings of a progressive and pros-
perous people. The newness and
freshness of everything in and around
Hopedale give the impression that
nothing of historical interest can be

487

488

MILFORD AND HOPEDALE

Robert Allen Cook, Architect

The Present High School Building

identified with the region; such an
impression certainly is most mislead-
ing. Just south of Hopedale Corner
stands the present High School build-
ing, a modern structure with every
up-to-date appointment, located al-
most exactly on the spot where Alex-
ander Scammell, afterwards a member
of General George Washington's
staff, taught school while he was yet
a student in Harvard College. Empty
barrels with boards across the top
served for "writing counters," and
planks resting upon boxes for seats.
Alexander Scammell subsequently
studied law with General John Sulli-
van, became colonel of the First New
Hampshire Regiment, chosen Light
Infantry, fought and was wounded at
the battle of Saratoga in 1777, at-
tained the rank of adjutant general
in 1780, and was numbered among

the most confidential friends of Gen-
eral Washington. He was field officer
on September 30, 1781, at the siege of
Yorktown, was surprised by a party
of the enemy's cavalry while recon-
noitring, and, after capture, inhu-
manly wounded. Being conveyed
prisoner to Williamsburg, Va., he
there died October 6, 1781.

On the high ridge between Milford
and Hopedale, near the spot now oc-
cupied by the beautiful residence of
Mr. George Otis Draper, stood the
once famous Scammell homestead.
From this point fine views of Mil-
ford, Franklin, Bellingham, the "Blue
Hills of Milton," and the towns of
Mendon and Hopedale. may be ob-
tained. The tower of St. Mary's
Church in the foreground towards the
east, and the quaint obelisk of Milford
granite raised to the memory and over
the remains of the late Fr. Cuddihy
are conspicuous objects, while the
great number of derricks in the dis-
tance among the thriving quarries
indicate an unlimited industrial future
for the town. Hopedale Centre from
this point is almost hidden from view
upon the west, being situated in the
low valley at the foot of the hill, mak-
ing its presence known by the inces-
sant murmur of its vast machine shops
and the columns of smoke rising from

The Great Shops of the Draper Company

MILFORD AND HOPEDALE

489

the tall chimneys above the interven-
ing forest.

Milford as an' independent to;wn
did not come into existence until
many years after the days of the first
grants. The Great and General
Court of the Province of Massachu-
setts Bay first passed an act which
made the territory now known as
Milford a separate precinct of the
mother town of Mendon. Mill River
divided the original Mendon town-
ship, which was eight miles square
and had been purchased from the
Indians in 1662 for the munificent
sum of £24. In 1692, after King
Philip's War (1676) had burned the
Mendon village and the scattered
owners had returned to their original
grants, the town of Mendon made the
additional purchase of three square
miles situated in what is now the
northerly part of the town of Milford,
and for nearly half a century the resi-
dents of this wide territory attended

The Tower of St. Mary's Church

The Obelisk to Father Cuddihy
church and town meeting at the
central village on Mendon Hill.
It was in 1730 that the evolution-
ary process of division began, and,
as the best institutions of this
world always stimulate the most
violent emotions, tribulation began
when it became necessary to repair
or rebuild the meeting-house. The
isolated farmers living east of
Mill River remonstrated to the
extent of twenty-eight votes
against the expenditure of money
for a purpose so far removed
from their local, if not spiritual
interests. There were dozens of
stormy town meetings which fol-
lowed and the untiring efforts,
extending over a period of forty
years, of the residents east of Mill

Main Street

Congress Streft
490

MILFORD STREETS

MILFORD AND HOPEDALE

491

■

received the bold
and confident sig-
nature of John
Hancock, Speak-
er, and those also
of "S. . Adams"
and "Artemas
Ward," April n,
1780.

Thus came into
existence the pres-
ent town of Mil-
ford, during a
period almost
identically con-
temp oraneous

River, to separate
themselves from
Mendon and be-
come an independ-
ent municipality.
First came the pre-
cinct, as has al-
ready been indi-
cated— in 1 74 1 —
and then, after
many years of vot-
ing and counter-
voting, of commit-
tee compromises
and town meeting
eloquence, sus-
pended briefly dur-
ing the all-absorb-
ing period of
the Revolutionary

War, a vote was passed at Men-
don, March 1, 1779, ''granting the
Request of the Inhabitants of the
Easterly Precinct . . . to be set off
as a separate Town." The Act of
Incorporation was passed by the
"State of Massachusetts Bay," and

Memorial Hall, Milford

with the birth, the brilliant life and
death of its greatest Revolutionary
hero — Alexander Scammell. The
origin of the name is not positively
known. There were already many
Milfords in the world, but the lovers
of antiquarian coincident are prone

492

MILFORD AND HOPEDALE

to believe that it wa's suggested by the
ford of Mill River, situated near the
mill which gave the river its name.
Years before King Philip and his
compatriots laid waste to all the re-
gion round about, John Albee had
been authorized to build a "grain
mill" for the accommodation of the
first settlers and the identical site of
that famous enterprise is easily dis-
tinguishable . near the bridge which
crosses the stream by the recent resi-
dence of Mr. Lewis Gaskill on the
road leading from Milford to Woon-
socket.

The year that saw the birth of Mil-
ford as a town was that of the adop-
tion of our state Constitution, and was
memorable also for that famous "Dark
Day," which aroused the superstitions

and played upon the fancies of our
ancestors for a century after. The
vicissitudes of the time had nurtured
the spirit of self-preservation among
the citizens of Milford and their most
abundant luxuries consisted of econ-
omy, patriotism, and the theology of
John Calvin. Either through their
own indigence, lack of opportunity
or other misfortune there were,
among all the early New England
towns, a comparatively large number
of poor and incapable people. In be-
coming a separate town, therefore,
Milford necessarily assumed its pro-
portion of debts and the care of its
share of the paupers. This fact part-
ly explains one of the first votes
passed by the new town: "Voted, to
warn all persons out of the town of

Robert Allen Cook, Architect

Town House, Milford

MILFORD AND HOPEDALE

493

Mil ford that
have moved in
since it was a
town, or that
shall move into
said town here-
after." Consid-
ering that the
town's population
did not exceed
760, and that it
contained only
about 120 houses,
such a vote
might indicate a
remarkable de-
gree of selfish
intolerance ; but

when we realize the universal destitu-
tion that followed the trying period of
the eight years' war, and the great
financial depression that was only
equalled by the hardships and
sacrifices that had immediately pre-
ceded it, such a provision may not
surprise us. As a matter of fact the
warning itself was merely intended
to relieve the town of any responsi-
bility for the care of the poor which
might arise in the near future of diffi-

Milford Public Library

Bancroft Memorial Library, Hopedale

cult and discouraging reconstruction.
An examination of the appropriations
during the first years would lead one
to suppose that either umisual educa-
tional advantages were afforded, or
that the number of children was enor-
mously out of proportion to that of the
families. It was voted on September
4, 1780, that one thousand pounds
should be raised for "Schooling Chil-
dren." In subsequent years only
twenty pounds was appropriated for
the same purpose. The
difference lay in the rela-
tive values of the old con-
tinental currency and
metal, — twenty pounds in
silver being the equivalent
of a thousand in the depre-
ciated medium.

The life of any one of
our older New England
towns is an epitome of the
nation's history. Thus, to
know perfectly the story
of Milford is to become
informed concerning1 the

494

MILFORD AND HOPEDALE

national growth from the days of
those hardy pioneers who, in remov-
ing from Braintree to Mendon, were
confronted by as many risks, dangers
and difficulties as their children sus-
tain in a pilgrimage from Milford to
the Klondyke. The men who settled
east of Mill River bore their part in
the early Indian wars. They were
among those who, in 1744-48, and
again in 1755-63, were involved
with the French colonists and finally
accomplished the conquest of Canada.
The old muster rolls contain many
family names familiar to this day in
the political, commercial and reli-
gious annals of Milford. When the
spirit of independence began to move
through these colonies, old Mendon
and her various precincts forgot for
the time their local differences, held
tumultuous meetings under the en-
thusiastic leadership of the talented
patriot, Joseph Dorr, Esq., formed
companies of minutemen and, when
the news of the battle of Lexington
reached them, marched in hot haste
to bear a worthy part in Washing-
ton's army when it gathered for de-
fence around the town of Boston.

The zeal for national independence
inspired a spirit which allowed no
step to be taken in any direction
without earnest and sometimes stub-
born deliberation. What was true in
the attitude of the colonies towards
the mother country was afterwards
equally true of that of each munici-
pality in relation to its county and
its state, and even of individuals to
one another. Every man knew that
he was, by the mere fact of birth, en-
titled to certain inalienable rights.
Both in politics and in religion the
spirit which had animated Oliver

Cromwell and his Ironsides would
tolerate no exercise of authority
which threatened to deprive the in-
dividual of that personal responsi-
bility which existed in the very nature
of things between himself and his
Maker. It was therefore no easy task
to get harmonious, concerted action
among the different members of the
young Republic. Non-conformity
was the habit of the time and it char-
acterized alike both the hive and the
bee. If the newborn nation had
troubles, so did every town with its
folkmote of jealous and fearless citi-
zens, and the debates that aroused
the fervent patriotism of Jefferson and
the nervous eloquence of Hamilton
were no more intense than the town
meeting discussions over the simplest
questions of way and means. When,
in the course of time then, the Federal
Constitution was presented to the
citizens of Milford for adoption it
was considered as seriously as if the
whole matter of national government
depended upon the result. It was too
important a subject to be launched
upon the town without careful ex-
amination, and so a committee of
responsible citizens was chosen to
instruct the delegate to the state con-
vention, Mr. David Stearns, as to the
position which Milford was to take.
That committee, for what reasons
we may never know, brought in a re-
port to reject the Constitution, the
town assembled, confirmed the report
and Milford, therefore, joined the
minority in opposition to that immor-
tal instrument.

That action did not, however, have
any weakening effect upon the
patriotism of the town in subsequent
events. The military spirit was strong

Hopedale Pond

and active. When, in 1787, the Shays
insurrection aroused the sense of in-
justice and oppression in Worcester
County, until a kind of insanity con-
trolled a number of the people, Mil-
ford remained loyal and patient wait-
ing for the nation itself to work
out its own salvation. During the
entire period between the Revolution
and the war of 1812 she felt each
thrill of the nation's heart and re-
sponded instantly in some expression
of loyal sympathy and co-operation.
Her famous artillery company, with
its two brass fieldpieces, which was
formed just before the War of 181 2,
was the pride of the town for many
years. Tt was called into actual ser-
vice in 1814, and was stationed for
the defence of Boston when the navy
of Great Britain was threatening to
"blow America out of the water."
Its fame spread far and wide, and

although no record preserves an ac-
count of any sanguinary demonstra-
tion of bravery, the brilliancy of its
uniforms, the beauty of its standards
and the generally handsome appear-
ance of its members are attested
by the reception which the ladies
of Milford tendered this company
on the 4th of July, 1827, when
prayers, speeches, the presenta-
tion of a banner, and a bountiful
feast at Colonel Sumner's hotel
proved conclusively that no enemy,
foreign or domestic, would threaten
the welfare of the Republic with im-
punity.

The part that Milford bore in the
awful Avar of the Rebellion cannot
here be reviewed. The relics that are
now preserved in the beautiful me-
morial building situated in the centre
of the town are mute witnesses to
the struggles, sacrifices, endurance,

495

496

MILFORD AND HOPEDALE

loyalty and heroism which have al-
ways and everywhere characterized
the American soldier. The Grand
Army of the Republic is represented
by Fletcher Post, No. 22, whose vet-
eran members were drawn in the dark
days of 1861-64 from the youthful
chivalry of the North. Milford did its
part honorably and nobly, and the
reader who wishes to trace in detail
the magnificent record of its sons and
fathers in the great struggle for the
Union will find ample testimony
among the archives of Memorial
Hall.

Politics and religion wrote them-
selves in strong italics in the history
of the town from the beginning. The
old "Jones house," which was built
about 1700 on the spot now occupied
by a part of the Draper works in
Hopedale, was the scene of pious in-
terest when, in order to become a
separate precinct, the Mill River resi-
dents of Mendon formed the second
church of the town (1731). For many
years the Milford church was sup-
ported by
the direct
taxation of
the citizens

''■■Mi

Univepsalist Church, Milford

of the town. The theology of
the time conformed harmoniously
with the dangers, fears and hard-
ships of the wilderness. Human
character in those days was com-
posed of tough material and it was
knotted and bound by such theories
of life as allowed little latitude for the
tender sensibilities and larger judg-
ments of a more scientific humanity.
The age was Hebraic and the Old
Testament furnished the inspiration
and the guidance for all human inter-
course. The Puritanic conscience led
the way. Art and beauty were ab-
horrent to it, and the grim necessities
of the time forestalled and prevented
whatever in religion tended towards
aesthetic display or satisfaction.
When Dr. William Jennison pre-
sented a Bible to the precinct church
that it might be read in public by the
minister, immediately a storm of dis-
approval was aroused by those who
could see in such an action nothing
but a tendency to imitate the popery
and formalism of the Church of Eng-
land. So the good doctor withdrew
his gift and directed that it should
remain the private possession of the
minister, and the congregation con-
tinued to confine its worship to
"laborious" prayers and two and
three hour sermons. In the course
'of many years the church voted to
introduce a bass viol and to hire
some one to play it, and we have
evidence that this appeared to some
of the members to be a subtle ruse
of the devil to undermine the spir-
itual welfare of the congregation;
for, not long after, when the great
awakening under Whitefield and
Edwards came, the spirit of ra-

Milford Pink Granite Quarries

tional liberality had so far invaded
the pulpit that members began to fall
away to join the beginnings of other
churches, calling the old church
"Babylon," "a band of robbers"' (re-
ferring, possibly, to the system of tax-
ing all the residents of the town for
the support of the church), "a syna1
gogue of Satan," and other equally
picturesque epithets. At the Con-
gregational Church in Milford at the
present time one may be made to
realize what a Puritan church of the
past is capable of becoming. If that
solitary bass viol with its solemn
groaning was, in those early days,
an evidence of Satanic intrigue, what
would the fathers think if they could
listen to the glorious sacred concerts
that are given within the walls of the
present fine edifice of to-day? And
if they were to attend church on the

Sunday it might seem to them that
"there is no religion if there is no
hell."

Milford, like other New England
towns, gradually ceased to support
the "town church" by levying taxes
upon the citizens, as other denomina-
tions came and established churches.
The Universalists, as early as 1781,
began to preach their "heretical
doctrines" in the vicinity. It was,
apparently, favorable soil in which to
plant the seeds of the "death and
glory" doctrine, for many prominent
and influential families soon enrolled
themselves under a "Charter of Com-
pact" in a manner — as the preamble
states it — "which is most happifying
and secure in the great matters of
Religion and Morality." For many
years there was more or less social
and ecclesiastical friction between

497

498

MILFORD AND HOPEDALE

Adin Ballou's House, as it was

these two churches, each command-
ing the support and loyalty of able
and respected citizens ; but the times
have long since ushered in the wiser
and more charitable — more Christian
— spirit and the amicable relations
between all the various congregations
that now attend to the religious in-
terests of the town are exceptionally
tolerant and cordial. In recent years
the Universalist society has erected
a beautiful church, built of Milford
granite, and filled with numerous
memorials to the devoted saints who
have labored and passed to their re-
ward. Of the other religious bodies
and institutions that now flourish in
the town of Milford, the Methodists
came in 1792, and the Baptists quite
as early, if not earlier, while it was
not until May 17, 1863, that the
Protestant Episcopal Church first
held services in the town. The
Roman Catholic Church, St.
Mary's, practically first appeared
when, in 1847, Rev. John Boyce
of Worcester began work among
the Irish laborers, many of whom
had moved into town to work-
on the Boston and Worcester Rail-
road. From that time it has gained
great numerical strength and its

fine house of worship is a monument
to the zeal of its earnest priests and
ardent supporters. The church is built
of Milford granite, with a tower of ex-
ceptional grace overlooking the sur-
rounding country. The late Fr.
Patrick Cuddihy, whose long and
notable labors resulted in the estab-
lishment of many Roman Catholic
churches, is credited with the remark-
able enterprise, sagacity and force
which have resulted in this monu-
ment of devotion and sacrifice.

As early as 1795 Arial Bragg
moved into the northeast corner of
the town and began the making of
boots, employing two assistants.
This seems to have been the com-
mencement of a business which, years
afterwards, distinguished Milford
among the manufacturing centres of
the state. As an illustration of the
business methods of those days the
Ballou History of Milford copies
the following entry from Colonel
Bragg's Memoirs:

"Hired a horse for fifty cents, bought a
bag of hay of John Claflin for ten cents;
and with his twenty-two pair of shoes in
saddle-bags, and his bag of hay bound on
behind him, before the sun had risen was
off for Providence; stopped one-half mile
north of Providence bridge; gave hay to
his horse, and with one pair of shoes in his
hand, and the saddle-bag on his back,
marched on. When going on to the
bridge saw two men standing by the way-
side, when one of them called out, 'Have
you shoes to sell?' The response was,
'I have.' 'How many?' ' Twenjty-two
pairs.' 'What do you ask?' 'One dollar
per pair.' Looking at them, said he, 'I
will give you twenty-one dollars and fifty
cents.' 'You shall have them.' Took the
money, returned to his horse, found him
refreshed, when he mounted and rode di-
rect to Mr. Draper's in Attleborough, of
whom he had heard when in Brookline.

Adin Ballou Park

Bought six Calf-skins; rode to Thurston's
Tavern in Franklin, gave his horse the hay
that remained and arrived home one hour
after sundown the same day; paid three
weeks' board, and for his horse, and found
that eight dollars would remain for his
three weeks' work; which was far better
than seven dollars per month at Brookline,
where the inhabitants thought it beneath
their dignity to hold conversation with
their hired help, or a journeyman shoe-
maker."

Gradually the boot and shoe busi-
ness increased. To name the various
firms that have engaged in this enter-
prise, the amount of the products
turned out and the number of men
and women employed in the town for
nearly a hundred years would simply
mean many pages of statistics copied
from the state records. As every-
body knows, no industry in New Eng-
land has been subjected to greater
changes through the introduction of
machinery, more frequent fluctuations

on account of labor disturbances, pro-
founder revolutions through the in-
fluence of war and western immigra-
tion and the ever-increasing demands
of competition, than the production
of leather and the manufacture of
boots and shoes. Milford has felt
these commercial and industrial vicis-
situdes most keenly, as is now attest-
ed by the number of large buildings
that once turned out hundreds of
cases daily but are now used for
storage or devoted to other purposes.
At the present time the two principal
shoe shops employ together from 800
to 1,000 hands.

Fortunately for Milford, however,
nature has furnished within her own
territory an inexhaustible supply of
most excellent granite. As early as
1845 the amount of stone quarried
and prepared was valued at $3,500,
and within recent years many large
quarries have been opened of which

499

500

M1LFORD AND HOPEDALE

those of Norcross Brothers, the Bay
State Pink Granite Company and the
G. H. Cutting Granite Company are
the most important, employing from
1,200 to 1,500 men. This industry
promises to furnish, for generations
to come, a permanent and substantial
resource for both capital and labor, foi
the quality and beauty of the now
well known granite has been demon-
strated in the construction of hun-
dreds of public and commercial
buildings in all parts of the country.

For many years considerable atten-
tion has been devoted to the manu-
facture of straw goods and Milford is
now looking forward to a prosperous
future along that line. Some years
ago Mr. William Lapworth, an ener-
getic, expert manufacturer of elastic
fabric web, secured a large building
and began operations with a limited
number of the most improved looms.
At the present time he has practically
reached the limit of the capacity af-
forded by his original plant and
promises to extend indefinitely his
young and flourishing business.

The prospect for a more substan-
tial and profitable growth, in popula-
tion, in the increased value of real
estate, and in public improvements,
seems better now than at any period
in the last quarter of a century. The
town has two daily papers — the Nezvs
and the Journal — which together with
a weekly, the Gazette, established in
1882 by Gilbert M. Billings, and con-
ducted by Cook & Sons since 1872,
are potent forces in all the manifold
enterprises and political and social
interests of the town. There is an
efficient fire department, of which
Mr. John H. Scott is the experienced
and faithful chief, with two steamers,

hook and ladder trucks, and all the
necessary paraphernalia. The water
supply is ample and satisfactory, the
pumping station being located near
the banks of the classic Charles,
which takes its rise in the northern
part of the town. Both Milford and
Hopedale are connected under the
same system of water works, and are
both supplied also with gas and elec-
tric light from stations situated in the
manufacturing part of the former.

The Boston and Albany Railroad, in
its early days, constructed a branch
road from South Framingham to Mil-
ford through the town of Holliston.
Its present station is unattractive and
unsuitable and should be replaced by a
better. A branch of the New York,
New Haven and Hartford Railway also
passes through the town, connecting
the main line at Franklin with the
Boston and Albany at Ashland. The
Grafton and Upton Railroad also has
its terminus in Milford. But it is
a centre from which electric lines
radiate in every direction that the
town is particularly fortunate. The
following towns, from which further
connections are made to all parts of
the state, have been joined to Milford
by trolley lines which are now in
profitable operation: South Framing-
ham, Hopkinton, Upton, Hopedale,
Mendon, Uxbridge, Franklin, Woon-
socket and the Medways.

From the earliest days Milford has
been favored with excellent hostelries.
When President Washington, in 1789,
passed this way, he stopped for re-
freshments at the Samuel Warren
Inn. There he was waited upon by
the prominent citizens of the town,
including the minister, and addressed
as "Your Highness." An old elm is

MILFORD AND HOPEDALh

501

still standing where, tradition says,
one of his horses was tied, and one
may fancy he can still see where the
hungry animal gnawed away some of
the bark. This is one of the scores^ of
trees throughout New England where
"Washington hitched his horse."

The judicial district composed of
Milford and several neighboring
towns deserves special notice because
of the long and faithful administration

Cook. Associated many years with
his father and brother in the publica-

Judge Charles A. Dewey

of Judge Charles A. Dewey, a native
of Northampton, Mass., where his
father, whose name he bears, pre-
sided over the Supreme Court for al-
most thirty years. Judge Dewey
was graduated at Williams College in
1 85 1 and was admitted to the bar in
1854. He was appointed trial justice
in July, 1 861, and later justice of the
Police and District Courts, thus hav-
ing held court here, as the local
magistrate, for1 the long term of over
forty years.

Perhaps no single event in recent
years has been more deeply regretted
among the progressive and public
spirited residents of Milford and
Hopedale than the death, on August
26, 1900, of the Hon. William Henry

The Late Eben D. Draper

Hon of the Milford Journal, he had
won the respect and confidence of the
public so completely that he had re-
peatedly been elected to both houses

, ' **m

The Late Hon. William Henry Cook

of the state Legislature, where he
became known as a fearless and in-
corruptible champion of what he
regarded as sound political measures.
His political enemies, no less than
his constituents, admired the stalwart
and consistent zeal with which he fol-
lowed the line of personal and politi-

502

MILFORD AND HOPEDALE

cal duty, and in his death the town
sustained a loss which will be long
remembered and deeply felt.

No account of historical and mod-
ern Milford could, even remotely, ap-
proach completeness which did not
give some attention to the inception,
development and dissolution of the

1886 Hopedale was a part of
the town of Milford. The two places
are now divided by scarcely over a
mile of distance from post office to
post office, and in all matters except
municipal government are most close-
ly allied. When Adin Ballou, in the
full strength of his young manhood,

The Late George Draper

"Fraternal Community, No. 1,"
popularly known as the Hopedale
Community, founded under the
leadership of the late Rev. Adin
Ballou, January 28, 1841. This
subject has already received special
notice in the New England Maga-
zine, and can here be referred
to in a mere word only. Until

selected the "Dale" as the site on
which he intended to work out
the principles of practical Christian
socialism, there were few dwelling
houses in all the region which is now
teeming with the increasing popula-
tion and ever enlarging manufactories
of modern Hopedale. The Community
drew to itself men of earnest purpose,

MILFORD AND HOPEDALE

503

Joseph B. Bancroft

high ideals and powerful executive
ability. As an organic effort to demon-
strate the practicability of socialism
it is generally referred to as a failure ;
but as an effort to emphasize the fun-
damental princi-
ples of perma-
n e n t human
welfare it was a
marked success. |,
Ad,in Ballou
continued, long
after the Com-
munity dis-
solved, to teach
and exemplify
the doctrines of
non-resistance
and Christian
co-operation.
The aged Count
Leo Tolstoi re-
cently referred
to him as, in his
opinion, "the
greatest of
American writ-
ers," which is

Eben S. Draper

Gen. William F. Draper

simply one of many superlative
tributes paid to him by men of kin-
dred sympathies in different parts of
the world. A fine statue in bronze
was recently presented to the town
by General Wil-
liam F. Draper,
voluntary con-
tributors buy-
ing the old Bal-
lou homestead
and suitably lay-
ing out the
grounds around
the monument.
Associated with
Mr. Ballou in
the early days
of the Commu-
nity was a man
of noble ideals
and unusual abil-
ity, the late
Eben D. Draper.
Under his guid-
ance the Hope-
dale machine
works were

504

MILFORD AND HOPEDALE

loom occupied
many years,
during which
the services of
a great num-
ber of expert
mechanics and
inventors were

employed,

sides the

penditure

hundreds

thousands

dollars.

be-

ex-

The

result, now
that the loom
is a fully
demonstrated
success, as-

Unique Tenements for

originally established. In the course
of a few years his brother, the late
George Draper, became interested
both in the Community and its indus-
trial enterprises and, afterwards, was
the leading spirit in developing the
vast plant now known as the Draper
Company, of. which General Wm. F.
Draper, the recent United States am-
bassador to Italy, is the president, and
Mr. Joseph B. Bancroft vice-presi-
dent. From 2,500 to 3,000 men are
now employed by the Draper Com-
pany in the manufacture of cotton
machinery, of which the famous
Northrop loom is the most remark-
able production, and the advantages
resulting to Milford and surrounding
towns are correspondingly great.
Hopedale itself has a population of
about two thousand, and therefore a
large draft is made upon the neigh-
boring towns for sufficient help.
The invention of the Northrop

Employes

in the labor
cost of cotton cloth production of 25
per cent. Thousands of these looms
are now supplanting the older types
and being introduced into all parts
of the world. This fact partly ac-
counts for the sudden expansion of
the Hopedale shops and the creation
of the vast foundry covering many
acres and resembling when seen
upon the inside during the process
of "pouring off," one of the colossal
circles in Dante's Inferno.

The development of Hopedale since
its incorporation as a town has
been both interesting and rapid. The
streets have been macadamized and
lined with shade trees, concrete side-
walks have everywhere been laid,
systems of gas and electric lights,'
water supply, sewerage and all that
modern municipal regulation requires
have been thoroughly introduced. The
houses which have been built by the
Draper Company, both in Hopedale

and Milford, are
unique as tene-
ments for em-
ployes. Pictur-
esque, with lawns
and great archi-
tectural variety
in construction
and surround-
ings, and fur-
nished with every
convenience for
modern house-
keeping, at an un-
usually low ren-
tal, these houses

are worthy of study and imitation by
similar manufactories throughout the
country. When the Hopedale Com-
munity finally dissolved, the present
Hopedale parish was formed October
27, 1867, receiving the meeting-
house, cemetery and "disposable

Hopedale Memorial Church

funds" of the Community, taking the
responsibilities of the Sunday-school
and other religious enterprises. Mr.
Ballou ministered to the Hopedale
parish for many years, during which
he compiled the voluminous history,
"The Ballous in America," "The

505

506

MILFORD AND HOPEDALE

E. L. Wires,
President Hospital Association

Hopedale Community," "An Auto-
biography," and several other vol-
umes. In 1898 the meeting-house at
Hopedale was removed, and the
present church was built and pre-
sented to the parish by the brothers,

George A. and Eben S. Draper, in
loving memory of their parents,
George and Hannah (Thwing)
Draper. This fine edifice, constructed
of Milford granite, follows the old
English Gothic style of architecture
and forms a beautiful house of
worship and a lasting monument to
the deeper insight of its donors. This
building, however, is only one
of many public enterprises which
the Draper family have been instru-
mental in furnishing to both towns.
It was through the generosity and
patriotism of the late George Draper
that the noble Memorial Hall in Mil-
ford was finally raised in memory of
the services of the soldiers of the
Civil War. He was the donor of the
Hopedale Town Hall, which, unfortu-
nately, he did not quite live to see
dedicated. General Wm. F. Draper,
some years ago, built and presented
to the town a fine street about a mile
in length, and Hon. and Mrs. Eben

Hopedale Street

MILFORD AND HOPEDALE

507

S. Draper have recently offered to the
Milford Hospital Association a lot of
land upon which they propose to
erect a commodious building contain-
ing every possible convenience known
to medical science. In this connec-
tion also should be mentioned the
beautiful Bancroft Memorial Li-
brary, the gift, to the town, of Mr.
Joseph B. Bancroft, in memory of his
wife, Sylvia W. (Thwing) Bancroft.
This, too, is constructed of Milford
granite. The exterior is richly orna-
mented by exquisite carvings, and the
interior of solid oak is superbly fin-
ished. Generous appropriations are
made by the town for books, and the
library is open to the public every
afternoon and evening.

The recent rapid increase in the
population of Hopedale has necessi-
tated the construction of the new
grammar school building, built of
brick with granite trimmings, and
standing amid pleasant surroundings,
near the admirable play-grounds
which the town has prepared at great
expense for public use. An extensive
park around the pond at the north of
the town has been planned. It will

From a sketch by the architect, Robert Allen Cook

Milford Hospital

contain excellent drives, groves and
boating facilities, and will form a
picturesque resort for pleasure pur-
poses.

Anawassamauke, Quashaamitt and
Namsconont were the simple names
of the three Indian chiefs who deeded
Quinshipaug Plantation and Mago-
miscock Hill to Moses Payne and
Peter Brackett, ''both of Braintree,"
in the presence of John Elliott, Sr.,
John Elliott, Jr., and Daniel Weld,
Sr., and by that act they opened the
way for a ceaseless and ever victorious
race-ascendency which no Indian brav-
ery could withstand. The conquest
still goes on which was begun by
those early pioneers, only it has now

w4fc

Hopedale Grammar School

Residence of Eben S. Draper

Eben S. Draper's Stable

shifted from the subjuga-
tion of the virgin wilder-
ness to the complete control
of the forces of nature.
Hopedale is doing its part
in this great campaign,
making it ever more pos-
sible for vast populations
to exist and thrive under
conditions of prosperity
and enlightenment of
which the fathers never
dreamed.

Residence of Gen. W. F. Draper

Night's Awakening

By H. Percival Allen

HE stirs himself, the sombre horseman Night,
And shaking out the trappings of his steed,
Prepares to face the conflict with the light.
His troops in long lines sweep across the sky,
In silence spreading out to flank the sun,
To out-manceuvre all his pomp and power,
And overwhelm the glory of his throne.
A sable host, whose cloaks are dyed with red —
The ebbing life blood of the conquered day;
And when — the turmoil o'er, the strife all passed-
He calls unto his conquering host to stay,
Upon each breast he pins a silver star
To mark them veterans of another war.

508

The Birthplace of the American Free
Public School

By N. L. Sheldon

THERE are many things
about old Dedham, in the
Commonwealth of Massa-
chusetts, that make it a
place of more than passing interest;
but perhaps the principal one, to the
student of human affairs, is that here
was established the first public school
in America, and indeed in the world,
"for the education of the youth. "*

The prayer of that good and Rev-
erend John Eliot, at the synod of
churches in Boston, in the early days,
"Lord, for schools everywhere among
us! Oh! that our schools may flour-
ish! That every member of this as-
sembly may go home and procure a
good school to be encouraged in the
town where he lives. That before we
die we may see a good school in
every plantation in the country,"
seems, in our day, to have been fully
answered.

The founders of the Massachusetts
colonies were highly educated, no
less than earnest Christian men and
women. They fully believed what
they asserted in their first public law
on the subject: "That the good edu-

* The writer is well aware that there were many schools in
the early colonial days known as "public schools," in the
sense that they were open to the children of the inhabitants
in general, and that some of them were supported from the
income or tax of land owned by some of the members of a
particular town or community; but the case of the public
school above referred to is the first instance in history in
which a school was established by the voters or freemen of
a town, and supported by general taxation, that is, by a
tax on all of the property, and all of the property-holders
of a town or community. It was a public school both in
the sense that it was open to the public, and supported by
the public, generally, and it was in every sense a public
institution conducted on the same general plan as are our
public schools of to-day.

cation of children is of singular be-
hoofe and benefit to any Common-
wealth." Accordingly, no sooner
had they built rude log houses for
their families, and the simple temple
for the worship of God, than they be-
gan the work of giving to their
children that "good education," first
at their own firesides, and then — and
very soon — in the public school, "to
the end that the rich boon might be
possessed by all — the children of the
poor and unlearned, no less than
those more highly favored."

The first colonists of the Massachu-
setts Bay Company with John Win-
throp, governor, and Thomas Dudley,
deputy governor, about one thousand
in number, arrived, we are told, in
1630, and settled at Boston, Charles-
town, Dorchester, Roxbury, Water-
town, Medford and Lynn. Salem had
been settled in 1628, and the Plym-
outh Colony in 1620. The settlement
of Dedham was begun in 1635 and
the first recorded birth is on the 21st
of June of this year. This was six
years and four days from the morn-
ing when Winthrop and his associates
entered Boston Harbor, "to find a
place for sitting down."

A portion of the lands comprised
within the original limits of the town
was purchased of the Indians "for a
fair consideration" and deeded to the
colony by Chikatawbot, the chief,
about the year 1630. The original

509

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\. ^a^iiuisaawsst: 7, 15 ■ * -

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deed being lost, it was renewed in
1635 by Josias Waumpatuk, grandson
of Chikatawbot, and the latter deed
is still in existence. The more
southerly portions were purchased of
King Philip, chief of the Wampano-
ags, "and due payment made." The
territory of the town originally em-
braced what are now the towns of
Bellingham, Dover, Franklin, Med-
field, Medway, Millis, Needham, Nor-
folk, Norwood, Walpole, Wellesley,
Westwood and Wrentham, and parts
of Foxboro, Hyde Park, Natick and
Sherborn.

The "plantation" was begun by
twenty-three "proprietors," moving
thither, it is said, from Watertown
and Roxbury. They signed what
was termed the "town covenant" in
August, 1636, and in September of
the same year "petitioned the Gen-
510

eral Court" for the confirmation and
enlargement of the land grants of
the previous year with the suggestion
that the town be called "Content-
ment." "Three days later," the peti-
tion was granted "by a general vote,
freely and cheerfully," but Dedham,
for some reason, had been substituted
for Contentment as the name of the
new town, probably for the reason
that several of the original settlers
were natives of Dedham, England.

The covenant of the first settlers is
indeed interesting, and well illustrates
the Puritan spirit and idea. It is as
follows :

"1st. We, whose names are hereunto
subscribed, do in the fear and reverence of
our Almighty God mutually and generally
promise amongst ourselves and each
other, to profess and practice one truth
according to that most-perfect rule the
foundation whereof is everlasting life.

Alden's OldDedham Tavern

''2nd. That we shall by all means labor
to keep off from us all such as are con-
trary minded; and receive only such unto
us as may probably be of one heart with
us, as that we either know or may be well
and truly informed to walk in a peaceable
conversation, with all meekness of spirit
to the edification of each other in the
knowledge and faith of the Lord Jesus;
and to the mutual encouragement unto all-
temporal comforts in all things seeking
the good of each other out of all which
may be derived from peace.

"3rd. That if at any time difference
shall arise between parties of our said
Town, that then such party or parties shall
presently refer all such differences unto
some one, two or three others of our said
society to be fully accorded and deter-
mined without further delay, if it possibly
may be.

"4th. That every man that now, or at
any time hereafter shall have lots in our
said Town shall pay his share in all such
rates of money and charges as shall be im-
posed upon him rateably in proportion
with other men; as also become freely sub-
servient to all such laws and constitutions

as shall be necessarily had or made now or
at any time hereafter from this day for-
ward, as well for loving and comfortable
society in our said Town, as also for the
prosperous and thriving condition of our
said fellowship; especially respecting the
fear of God in which we desire to begin
and continue, whatsoever we shall by his
loving favor take in hand.

"5th. And for the better manifestation
of our true resolution herein, every man
so received to subscribe hereunto his
name, thereby obliging both himself and
his successors after him forever as we
have done."

At a town meeting held the follow-
ing year, January 1, 1637, at which
thirty-five persons were present, a
committee was "chosen to contrive
the Fabricke of a meeting house to be
in length 36 foote & 20 foot in bredth
& between the upp and nether sill in
ye studds 12 foote." The records in-
dicate a constant and intense interest
of the people in this work, but the

511

512 BIRTHPLACE OF THE AMERICAN FREE PUBLIC SCHOOL

church was not completed earlier
than 1646 or 1647. During this time
these few, but hard-working settlers
had dug a ditch twenty feet wide and
three-fourths of a mile long from
Charles River through the meadows
to East Brook, had connected Charles
River with the Neponset River, had
secured the erection of a corn mill
at East Dedham, and had put them-
selves on record as constructing the
first canal or water-way in America.
"It was," says Judge Frederick D.
Ely, "while one of these great public
works was in progress and the other
but lately completed, that the found-
ers of Dedham at a town meeting,
held January 1, 1644, old style, forty-
two persons being present, whose
names are given in the record, passed
the following vote, establishing the
first free public school :"

"The said Inhabitants, taking into Con-
sideration the great necesitie of providing
some means for the Education of the
youth in our s'd Towne, did with an
unanimous consent declare by voate their
willingness to promote that worke, prom-
ising to put too their hands, to provide
maintenance for a Free Schoole in our said
Towne.

"And farther did resolve and consent,
testifying it by voate, to rayse the summe
of Twenty pounds per annu towards the
maintaining of a Schoole Mr to keep a
free School in our s'd towne.

"And also did resolve and consent to
betrust the s'd 20 pound pr annu & certain
lands in our Towne formerly set apart for
publique use, into the hand of Feofees to
be presently chosen by themselves, to im-
ploy the s'd 20 pounds and the land
afores'd to be improved for the use of the
said Schoole: that as the profits shall arise
from ye s'd land, every man may be pro-
portionately abated of his some of the s'd
20 pounds aforesaid, freely to be given to
ye use a foresaid. And yt ye said Feofees
shall have power to make a Rate for the

necesary charg of improving the s'd land;
they giving account thereof to the Towne,
or to those who me' they should depute.

"John Hunting, Eldr Eliazer Lusher,
Francis Chickering, John Dwight &
Michael Powell, are chosen Feofees and
betrusted in the behalfe of the Schoole as
aforesaid."

The new school at once went into
operation in "the primitive thatched
meeting-house," and received the
regular support of the town.

"There is a tradition," says Rev.
Carlos Slafter, who was for over forty
years the highly respected master of
the Dedham High School, "that
Ralph Wheelock, the ancestor of the
first and second presidents of Dart-
mouth College, taught during this
time, and it is probable that he did
so."

It seems that soon after this public
school was established, these hardy
and far-seeing pioneers saw the
necessity of a school building, and
the record of the town shows this :

"January 1648-9. At a General meeting
of the Town ... A schoole house & a
Watch house is resolved to be' built this
next yeare the care whereof is left to the
select men."

And in the early records of the
selectmen "in the neat handwriting
of Capt. Lusher" is the following ac-
count of "the first temple of learn-
ing:"

"nmo. 15. 1648. Assemb: Hen Chick-
ering, Joh. Kingsbury, Joh. Dwight, Tho
Wight, Fra. Chickering, Joshu. Fisher &
Elea: Lusher. A school house to be built
as followeth, together with a watch
house, the length 18 foote, being 14 foote
beside the chimney, the wideness 15 foote,
the studd 9 foote betwixt joynts, one
floore of Joyce; 2 convenient windows in
the lower roome & one in the chamber,

BIRTHPLACE OF THE AMERICAN FREE PUBLIC SCHOOL 5l3

the plancher layed, the floor planked, the
stayers made, the sides boarded, feather-
edged and rabbitted, the doors made &
hanged.

"the watch house is to be a leanto set
at the back of the chimney sixe foote wide,
the length thereof 2 foote & one half mor
than the house is wide, so placed that the
end thereof may extend past the corner of
the house, so that the watch may have an
aspect 4 severall wayes. & open windowes
therein suitable to a watch house: & cov-
ered with board up to those windowes &
upon the roofe, & a mandle tree hewen &
fitted for the Chimney."

It is supposed that this building-
stood near, if not on the very spot
where the Unitarian Vestry now
stands, and that two, and probably
three, of its successors held the same
position, as it is often designated in
the records as "the school near the
meeting house."

"We have only to imagine," says
Mr. Slafter, "the busy hum of school
work filling the east room by day,
and the faithful watching of the senti-
nel from the windows of the west-
end lean-to during the long and lonely
nights, to understand how child and
man in these old days performed their
several parts in laying the foundation-
of a free school and a free state."

Here, too, on the parish green,
between the Courthouse and the
Unitarian Church, very near the site

■

&r or$4BERTy/' f%

f%j»p:|a» this Vicinity
:^^LausDEttREW.et[.Mn.k
' >ftiroao

First School Building

Pillar of Liberty

of the first schoolhouse, is a quaint
stone monument, commemorating the
repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766. It
is the base of the Pillar of Liberty
popularly known as Pitt's Head
which was erected by the Dedham
Sons of Liberty, according to Dr
Ames's diary, July 22, "in the pres-
ence of a vast concourse of people.'
It is said to have supported a tall
wooden column which was subse
quently surmounted by a bust of
William Pitt. It was, however, less
than three years after its erection,
overthrown in the night time and
after the Revolution the Dedham
schoolboys used "Pitt's Head" for
a football until it finally disappeared.
The inscriptions on the stone are as
follows :

(Westerly face.)

"The Pillar of Liberty.
Erected by the Sons of Liberty
in this vicinity

Laus Deo Regi, et Immunitat™
autoribus q. maxime Patrono

Fairbanks House

Pitt, qui Rempub rursum evulsit
Faucibus Orci."

(Northerly face.)
"The Pillar of Liberty.
To the Honor of Willm Pitt Esqr
& other Patriots who saved
America from impending Slav
re, & confirm'd our most loyal
Affection to Kg George III by pro-
curing a Repeal of the Stamp Act,
18th, March, 1766."

(Also on the northerly face is this in-
scription.)

"Erected here July 22, 1766
by Doctr Nath1 Ames 2nd
Col. Ebenr Battle, Maj Abijah
Draper & Other Patriots friendly
to the Rights of the Colonies at
that day.

Replaced by the Citizens
July 4, 1828."

The tablet on the easterly face,
giving the story of the monument in

514

brief, was placed on the occasion of
the two hundred and fiftieth anni-
versary of the town in 1886.

A little back from the main street
is the famous Fairbanks House, built
in 1636. "It is, without doubt, the
most picturesque old house in this
country." It is yet occupied, and
until recently by the eighth genera-
tion of this notable family.

Another object of interest near by
is the old Avery Oak, for which its
owner is said to have refused seven-
ty dollars when its timber was
wanted in the construction of the
frigate Constitution. It is, without
doubt, a tree of the primeval forest,
and its image has been engraved on
the. escutcheon of the town seal, and
the tree itself has become the proper-
ty of the Dedham Historical Society.

The brief history of the pile of

The Avery Oak

mason work that now stands so con-
spicuously near the road, on Dedham
Island, the origin and use of which
have excited no little curiosity, is this :
In May, 1762, the town voted "to
have the powder house builded on a
great rock in Aaron Fuller's land,
near Charles river," and .Captain
Eliphalet Fales, Daniel Gay and
Ebenezer Kingsbury were chosen a
committee to build the house. At the
meeting in May, 1765, the above-
named committee, not having com-
plied with the request of the town to
build, two more persons were joined,
viz., Deacon Nathaniel Kingsbury
and Captain David Fuller, and in-
structed to have said house erected
forthwith: the same "to be eight
feet square, on the outside, and six
feet high under the plates- — the
materials to be brick and lime
mortar." It was done, and for

many years the building was
used for the storage of ammuni-
tion.

The first "covenant" in the matter
of the "Free School" seems to have
been for seven years, and to have ex-
pired in 1 65 1, as it appears that on
January first of that year, the "free-
men" assembled in the "Little Meet-
ing-house," eighty-four responding
to the roll call, and voted as fol-
lows:

"It is resolved that a Schoole for ye
education of youth in our Towne shall be
continued & mayntayned for the whole
tearme of Seaven* yeares next, and that
the settled mayntenance or wages of the
schoolmr: shall be 20 pounds p ann at ye
leaste'."

So this "Free Public School" was

* It is evident that the early schoolmaster was not re-
quired to teach spelling. It is said that in the arithmetic
used by Master Metcalf in Dedham the same word is
sometimes spelled in three different ways in the same
paragraph.

515

The Powder House, Dedham Island

continued, with the master's pay un-
limited, his wages to be twenty
pounds per annum at the least, which
indicates that the freemen were
solicitous that nothing should be
spared to bring about the desired re-
sults, and so it has been continued,
here and elsewhere from that day to
this. And who can approximate the
bearing this small but wise beginning
in education of the freemen of Ded-
ham has had in the upbuilding of this
great people and nation? It probably
shaped the school legislation of the
Massachusetts Colony, as within three
years after their action the General
Court made the free public school a
part of her political system. And it
is an interesting and significant fact
that Eleazer Lusher, one of the
original Board of Feoffees of the
Dedham school and probably its
chief projector was a representative
516

from this town to the General Court
at most of its sessions from 1640 to
1662, and that Michael Powell and
Francis Chickering, two other feof-
fees, were also several times members
of that body. Indeed who would be
more zealous and hopeful, or better
able to advise on the question of pub-
lic education, than they who were
witnesses to the success of an experi-
ment conducted by their own hands?
The concensus of public opinion
fortified by a clear demonstration to
what was possible to an enlightened
community soon shaped itself into
wise legislation. The law made it
compulsory upon the town to support
public schools and to make educa-
tion universal and free; and the late
Hon. John W. Dickinson, for many
years secretary of the Massachusetts
State Board of Education, has said
of it, "As this was the first law of the

BIRTHPLACE OF THE AMERICAN FREE PUBLIC SCHOOL 517

kind ever passed by any community
of persons or by any state, Massachu-
setts may claim the honor of having
originated the free public school."

This notable law seems to have
given voice to the convictions of the
people, as it was generally and cheer-
fully obeyed, and on every side, as the
ancient forests gave way before the
hardy pioneers in their slow but sure
advance from the seaboard into the
interior, the meeting-house and the
schoolhouse arose side by side with
the log huts of the settlers, thus con-
verting the desolate places of the
wilderness into the homes of a Chris-

tian people — the "seed-plots" of a
higher and purer life for ages yet to
come. No grander spectacle in the
history of any people is presented
than that of these men thus strug-
gling for a scanty subsistence amid
the privations and dangers of border
life, against the attacks of a stealthy
and relentless foe, and yet, as if with a
prophetic vision of the future, sparing
no effort, and in their poverty shirk-
ing no sacrifice to plant the pillars of
the new Commonwealth, their "be-
loved New England," on the ever-
lasting foundations of universal in-
telligence and virtue.

1784- AVERY SCHOOL 1895

NAMED IN HONOR OF DR. WM. AVERY

OF DEDHAM PROMINENT IN THE AFFAIRS OF THE TOWN

WHO IN 1680 GAVE £60 TOWARDS THE SUPPORT OF A

LATIN SCHOOL.

(Tablet on Avery School, Dedham, Massachusetts.)

1644

AMES

SCHOOL

1897

NAMED

N HONOR OF FISHER AMES

A NATIVE OF

DEDHAM

- A WISE

STATESMAN -

A ND A

FRIEND

OF WASH

NGTON.

(Tablet on Ames School, Dedham, Massachusetts.)

y2.X*Vi^^v^i^:^^:Vi^*^*^.^#V^*VW^*^^»V.V*«^^*Vt'«*V«^Waf^^^4«^^^w<^ V. . - -

EDITOR'S TABLE.

OUR attention has been called
to the fact that the article
printed in our October is-
sue under the title "The Colonial
Parson," is taken almost bodily
from Mrs. Alice Morse Earle's
"The Sabbath in Puritan New Eng-
land," published and copyrighted by
Charles Scribner's Sons in 1891. We
have the kind assurance of author and
publishers that they hold us guiltless
of intention in this, but we feel that
we owe it to them to state thus pub-
licly the wrong to which we have been
made party, our regret at appearing
as receivers and purveyors of stolen
goods and our appreciation of the
most friendly way in which they ac-
cept our apologies.

It is our custom when accepting
manuscript for publication to ask the

author for references. The offer of
"The Colonial Parson" was made on
the letter paper of a leading univer-
sity with allusion to the writer's con-
nection therewith as a student under
one of its best known professors, and
we took it without question, for, as
Mrs. Earle generously says, "no editor
can know all the books that are writ-
ten." Too late we were confronted
with deadly parallel columns from
book and magazine, showing clumsy
paraphrasing or word for word trans-
fer of almost every sentence.

In the index to our Volume
XXVII, which will be publisher! in the
number for February next, the article
in question will appear as "The Colo-
nial Parson, taken from Alice Morse
Earle's The Sabbath in Puritan New
England,' by Homer J. Webster."
The Editor.

518

New England Magazine

New Series

JANUARY, 1903

VOL. XXVII NO. 5

Boston's Playground System"

By Joseph Lee

THE story of our Boston
playgrounds goes back at
least to the time, just pre-
ceding the Revolutionary
War, when, as the school ■ history
used to tell, the boys of Boston
appeared before General Gage
and made successful remonstrance
against being prevented by his sol-
diers from playing football- on the
Common. Our earliest playground
is, therefore, an inheritance from
old England, being simply the piece
of common land which our ances-
tors, as far iback as history knows
them, had always set aside in every

*The principal facts stated in this article are. selected
from very complete statistics collected by a committee of
the Massachusetts Civic League, the sources of informa-
tion being the Charities Directory published by the Asso-
ciated Charities and the different departments and societies
having charge of the matters dealt with.

manor, sometimes as perpetual pas-
ture, sometimes to be used in sev-
eralty for agriculture from Lady
Day to Michaelmas and for pastur-
age during the rest of the year.
How early our own Common began
to be used by the boys for their
games history says not; but pre-
sumably it was so used from the be-
ginning; so that we can claim a
municipal playground dating almost
from the Elizabethan age.

So much had England and the
middle ages done for us. What
have we done for ourselves?

From the setting aside of the
Common as public property it is a
very far cry to the next step in our
public provision for play and athlet-
ics, a step that brings us to a very

521

522

BOSTON'S PLAYGROUND SYSTEM

different age and a very different set
of ideas, namely, the establishment
in 1866 of ten municipal floating
baths by the Boston City Council.
These were, by ten years, the first
municipal baths in America. Their
starting was, I think, one result of
the wave of sanitary reform which,
stimulated by one or two visitations
of the cholera, and given great im-
petus by the lessons of the Civil
War and the work of the Sanitary
Commission, passed over the coun-
try at that time. It was in the same
year that New York made her first
effective effort to deal with the
problem of her slums, an effort re-
sulting in the creation of her Metro-
politan Board of Health, and in the
passage of her first great tenement-
house law in the following year.

It was also in this year, 1866, that
there was started, in the old First
Church in Chauncy Street, the first
vacation school in this country, an
event that marks the beginning of
an epoch in our philanthropic and
educational history. The vacation
school has since spread, slowly at
first, but with accelerating rapidity,
until to-day there are probably sev-
eral hundred of such institutions in
the country. I know that I have a
list of some sixty in Massachusetts
alone (started, for the most part, by
the women's clubs) and the im-
portance of these schools is not to
be measured by their numbers; they
are a part of a great educational
movement, and have rendered as
important service outside of their
walls as within. They have stimu-
lated the playground movement and
given it a deeper educational pur-
pose ; they have been the entering

wedge in the utilization of our pub-
lic school plant out of school hours,
and will lead to keeping the schools
open not only in summer but on
winter evenings ; and, most impor-
tant of all, they have given teachers
practical experience of the value of
those studies and occupations, such
as carpentry and nature study, that
make a deep and powerful appeal
to the child and call forth his inter-
est and enthusiasm. In this way
the vacation school is the pioneer
of new and better methods that are
certain in the- end to greatly modify
the course of instruction in the pub-
lic schools.

The summer of 1866 was, how-
ever, before the days of manual
training or of nature study as we
now understand it, and this first va-
cation school differed considerably
in its curriculum from those of the
present day. It even made use of
text-books (loaned by the city). But
it had singing, and when, in 1868,
the church moved to another part of
the city it set the fashion of using
a public school building and of open-
ing its yard as a playground. It is
interesting to know that some of
those prominent in this first experi-
ment are still helping to raise funds
for the Tyler Street vacation school
carried on by Denison House, one
of the best in the city.

The progress of the movement
was slow enough at first. As
Abram S. Hewitt has said, "every-
thing takes ten years," and it was
not until 1879 that tne next vaca-
tion school was started by Miss
Mary E. Very, a public school
teacher, the funds for which were
supplied by the Woman's Educa-

Charlesbank. Women's Gymnasium

tion Association, which has been at
the bottom of so much and such im-
portant pioneer work.

In 1 88 1 several of the conferences
of the Associated Charities took up
the vacation school idea, and now
such schools are many in our city,
numbering, according as one draws
the line between them and sand-
gardens, somewhere between fif-
teen and twenty. They are carried
on without text-books and without
compulsory attendance. The chil-
dren learn sewing, carpentry work,

care of plants, singing and drawing,
and from many of them weekly
country excursions are made, to the
end that the children may, under
the guidance of some nature-loving
teacher, pick flowers, chase butter-
flies, rub their noses in the grass,
and otherwise cultivate a first-hand
acquaintance with nature. The city
has taken up the idea, and this year
carried on five of these schools ; and it
is only a question of time when it will
be recognized that, for city children
at least, they are properly a part of

Charlesbank. Calisthenjc Drill

523

Fellows Street Playground
This Playground Was Deserted Until a Teacher Was Provided

the regular public schools. And
when we have adopted them into
our regular school course we shall
each year begin the children on the
studies characteristic of present va-
cation school work, especially on
the oLitdoor excursions for the study
of nature at first hand, riot in the
middle of summer but some time in
May. Under our present system
the latter part of the school year,
especially the month of June, is in-
variably characterized by a regular
epidemic of truancy. The explana-
tion of this phenomenon is simple.
A boy plays truant from school be-
cause school is playing truant from
nature. The season when the flowers
are coming out and the leaves are bud-
ding and the grass is becoming green
is not the one to be selected for keep-

524

ing the child indoors with his nose
close to a text-book. The exiles to
Siberia tell of King Cuckoo, a sov-
ereign at whose call the most hope-
less feels something in his heart
that makes it necessary for him to
try once more, if in any way he can
try, to regain his liberty. At the ap-
proach of summer there comes the
wandering impulse that is so deep
in our nature, the necessity of see-
ing green fields and hearing the
brooks and the birds ; the need is
strong in children, and should be
respected, indeed must be respected,
if we are to utilize, instead of try-
ing to work against, the forces
which make the child grow — the
forces, indeed, which are responsible
for his being here at all.

In 1886 Dr. Marie Zakrzewska

Columbus Avenue Playground
Ladder Coast. Horizontal Bar Class

wrote to Mrs. Kate Gannet Wells
of the Massachusetts Emergency
and Hygiene Association of Boston,
saying that in the public parks of
Berlin there were heaps of sand in
which children, under the care of
the police, were allowed to dig, as
if on a miniature seashore. The im-
mediate result of this letter from the
land of Froebel was the placing of
three piles of yellow sand in three
different improvised playgrounds in
Boston. The next year there were
ten, and in 1900 there were twenty-
three, toward the maintenance of
which the Boston School Commit-
tee contributed $3,000 and public
spirited citizens $1,300 more, while
the average daily attendance was
about 4,000.

The number this year has been

somewhat less, because the city is
now putting its money into vacation
schools.

Besides the sand-box there is, in
each sand-garden, some shade and
a kindergartner. These are the three
essentials, but every kind of game
is carried on, even baseball in some
of the bigger yards. And there is
sewing on the doll's dress and on
perforated cards, making scrap-
books and other occupations to give
the children an opportunity for use-
ful and constructive work, an oppor-
tunity fully as much valued by them
as anything else the playground
offers.

It is not too much to say that in
the work of this Boston society the
playground problem for small chil-
dren has been solved. Philadelphia,

525

526

BOSTON'S PLAYGROUND SYSTEM

New York, Chicago and many
other cities and towns have followed
the example. They all began as
much as ten years behind us, but
some of them have at least caught
up, and the movement, like that of
the vacation schools, is increasing
in a geometric ratio.

And some day Boston will put up
on the site of the first yellow sand-
pile a monument, very modest, and
pretty well hidden so as not to be
a shock to its subject, to Miss Ellen
M. Tower, the mother of the Ameri-
can sand-garden.

Our next important date is the
starting of Charlesbank, containing
the first outdoor gymnasium in
America, planned by Dr. Sargent of
Harvard and opened August 27,
1889. Two years later a women's
gymnasium was started at the other
end of this recreation ground, and
now Boston has another regular
outdoor gymnasium at Wood Island
Park, half a dozen indoor gymna-
siums, and still others in prospect.
The best work done in these is the
class work ; the making of various
motions and swinging light Indian
clubs or the like in time to music.

The gymnasiums devote their
energies chiefly to the average boy
and girl ; but so far as they do train
specialists — as at Charlesbank, for
instance, where the Harvard stu-
dent vies on equal terms with the
West End aspirant for athletic hon-
ors— it is to be remembered that
these comparatively few athletes
(say 200 at Charlesbank) are the
arbiters of fashion among the youth
of their vicinity, and that when the
instructor tells one of them that he
cannot waste his time with a man

that smokes cigarettes, the edict is a
far-reaching one.

Skating is a great feature at Charles-
bank. The attendance on a single day
has run as high as 5,000, and for a sea-
son has been as high as 159,835.

The use of the middle part of
this recreation park, which is not a
gymnasium at all, is perhaps the
most interesting. It was Frederiek
Law Olmstead, whose genius speaks
in the landscape of so many Ameri-
can cities, who planned the grassy
mounds with their trees and shrubs,
where the children play high-spy, give
tea-parties on the grass, and gener-
ally make use of the park in a
way of which it has been left to the
modern park commission to discover
the possibility. Formerly the grass had
the right of way ; now it is the chil-
dren, and we have no. grass space at
present in our whole Boston park sys-
tem, except on the Public Garden and
a few of the smaller squares, that is
not open to them.

The day of the old-fashioned
American city 'park has passed, or is
passing. If there still linger in Bos-
ton a few of those sacred enclo-
sures — places where the cast-iron
fence still guards the untrodden
grass ; where the sacred elms nod
plume-like above the chilly statues,
guardian deities of the spot; and
where no children's voices are raised
to disturb the decent mortuary still-
ness— if a few such still remain
they are survivals of an era that has
gone by, not characteristic institu-
tions of the present day.

Charlesbank affords besides its
more material advantages a view
across the Back Bay to the Brook-
line Hills, and the hot southwest

Columbus Avenue Playground
Children's Shelter and Gymnastic Apparatus

wind in summer comes to it across
the two intervening miles of salt
water. There is another 'breathing
place of this kind at Marine Park,
City Point, with its half mile of pier,
its natural history pools, and its
toy-boat sailing, while at North End
Park we have the Recreation Pier
proper, stretching out 150 yards
into the harbor opposite the Navy
Yard. Some time in the near future
the South Bay, bordering our sec-
ond most crowded ward in the city,
will have its recreation pier also.

Special provision is made for pic-
nicking at Franklin Park,- Chestnut
Hill Reservoir and many places in the
Metropolitan Park System.

Last of all, in the dawning of
the playground era, arose the play-
ground itself. In 1894, Nathan
Matthews, Jr., being consul, there
was great activity among the trade
unions, and the evidences of "a desire
on their part for a public meeting-
place. It was not thought best to

allow them to meet at Franklin
Park, as that was meant to be a
place of rest and recreation rather
than for oratory, and Franklin
Field of seventy acres was bought
for meetings and as a training place
for the militia. The field, although
but little used for the purposes which
suggested its purchase, has been most
useful to the young men who desire
to play active games and cannot find
room on the small local playgrounds.
Franklin Field serves also as a place
for the boys of the high-school age,
and for younger boys too, to play
many of the match games for which
the local playgrounds are too crowded
or too small. It is thus, in a sense,
the keystone of the arch, forming a
sort of university for which local play-
grounds are the preparatory schools.
A predecessor even of Franklin Field,
so far as the little children are con-
cerned, was the thirty-acre Playstead,
opened about 1890, on Franklin
Park,

527

Only the Streets to Play In

But a few big fields are not enough.
When Josiah Quincy was Mayor he
saw that the great omission in our
playground system was still the play-
ground itself, and he set to work in a
characteristically radical way to re-
move this deficiency. Through his ef-
forts a bill was passed by the Legis-
lature of 1898 (Chap. 412) providing
that a sum not greater than half a mil-
528

lion dollars could be spent by the Park
Commissioners, at the rate of not over
$200,000 a year, in creating "a system
of playgrounds" for the city. This
money has been honestly, skilfully and
judiciously expended, and now, in ad-
dition to our big suburban fields and
the playground portion of our sev-
enteenth-century Common, we have
some twenty-two local playgrounds

BOSTON'S PLAYGROUND SYSTEM

529

in different parts of the city, one
hundred and seventy acres in all, of
which all but about twenty-five
acres is in condition for use. Most
of these are flooded, swept and
planed for skating, of which, with
Jamaica and other ponds, the city
now provides about 150 acres. The
System, however, is not yet com-
plete ; the appropriation was not
sufficient to provide playgrounds in
all the crowded quarters, and the
commissioners very wisely decided
to use what money they had largely
in the out-of-town districts where
suitable pieces of ground could be

obtained which a few years later
would become prohibitive in price.
So that — in spite of two or three
special bills which have given us
North End Park, Commonwealth
Park in South Boston, and one or two
similar places — there are now very
crowded districts, notably the Ninth
Ward and parts of South Boston,
which are without any facilities of
this kind.

Another of Mayor Quincy's many
contributions toward making Boston a
city in which it is an education to live
was the practical completion of our
system of public baths. Besides the

Columbus Avenue Gardening
The Results

At Work

iM"

North End Park, Showing Beach, Laundry, Women's Building and
Children's Tent

ten floating baths of 1866, or their
successors, we have now many others,
including the great beach bath at
North End Park, and in fact a series
of baths nearly around the city, along
the river and harbor front with a few
in inland districts, thirty-three in all;
and in these almost two million baths
are taken every year. The Dover
Street all-the-year shower bath was
started in 1898. The Metropolitan
Park Department also has provided
its great surf bathing establishment
at Revere, where over one hundred
thousand baths are taken a season,
and we now have another at Nan-
tasket. Every citizen of Boston has
thus within his reach one of the
chief privileges of the visitor at a
seashore resort. He can start in the
middle of the business section of the
530

city and half an hour later find him-
self swimming in the free salt ocean
among the big waves rolling in un-
broken from the open sea. There
is something so wild and untamed
about Father Neptune, and the
smell of the sea breeze and the big
"mother wave" speak so from the
heart of unvexed nature that it
seems almost a miracle that one can
in so short a time escape from the
fuss and desperate up-to-dateness
of a modern street into this prime-
val world that was before man
appeared and will be after he has
gone.

The great L Street bath, free, and
close to a crowded population, where
every year over three hundred thou-
sand baths are said to be taken, has
also some of the advantages of a more

Savin Hill Beach
A Beach Bath Under Park Department

primitive age. At least it comes be-
fore the fall of man in the matter of
clothes, and it includes the best kind of
a sand-garden, namely, the natural
beach, where the small boys can dig
and the big boys can jump and wrestle
as well as bathe in the salt ocean. Each
of our gymnasiums has its shower-
bath, and the Paul Revere School
with ten showers for girls and ten for
boys, started in 1899, set the example
for school baths in this country. The
Metropolitan Park bath charges a fee
and pays for itself. The net running
expenses of the other baths are about
$50,000 a year.

And one thing more we are provid-
ing, little noticed but important —
following in this the example of
New York's dealing with the lower
East Side — namely, asphalt in the

little travelled but much-used streets
of the crowded districts. The
streets are — and will be until our
system of playgrounds includes
places for mothers and children so
frequent that every child shall live
within a quarter-mile radius of one
— the principal playground of the
smaller city child. If you don't be-
lieve it visit Parmenter Street, op-
posite the North End Union, any af-
ternoon or evening; and there are
many other streets in the North End
and Ninth Ward which you will find
equally convincing, to say nothing of
Marlboro' Street and Common-
wealth Avenue. From marbles that
come with the melting snow,
through baseball in spring and sum-
mer, around to "shinney" at the clos-
ing in of winter, the street is still

531

532

BOSTON'S PLAYGROUND SYSTEM

the popular place to play ; and
asphalt makes a much better play-
ground than cobble-stone or than
any except the smoothest macadam.

Besides the procuring of the play-
grounds still needed (notably the
big one in Ward IX that Mayor Col-
lins is going to get us), and the
proper fitting up of all of them, one
other important step remains to be
taken, namely, the providing of the
necessary supervision. We have
thus far derived from our play-
grounds only a small fraction of
the benefit which, with a little
supervision, they are capable of
conferring. On such large grounds
as Franklin Field, where on most
afternoons there is room enough
for all and where the players are
mostly well organized teams, super-
vision, beyond the giving of permits
and seeing that there is no interference
with those who hold them, is not neces-
sary, though teaching of some sort
might be very beneficial ; while on
grounds like the golf links at Franklin
Park, or the beautiful tennis ground
there, — where forty games can go on
at once on good turf in a glade sur-
rounded by hills and trees and pic-
turesque ledges of pudding-stone, —
no supervision is needed beyond ar-
rangements for the granting of per-
mits and a certain amount of watch-
ing and licensing on the golf course,
in order that the aspiring golfer may
not slay more than his due allow-
ance of innocent and unoffending citi-
zens.

But in the case of the average city
playground in the crowded districts
supervision is essential to its best
use, and in some cases, to any use
that is of any benefit at all. What

has occurred in certain instances
in New York and Philadelphia,
the degeneration, namely, of the
playground into a place for rowdyism,
has not happened in Boston ; but what
has happened has been that on the
playground large enough for baseball
the big boys and young men of the dis-
trict— of the class who live on their
mothers' washing, loaf about the street
corners, and as a sort of side show or
avocation for their spare time conduct
the politics of their district — have been
in the habit of monopolizing the
ground ; at least it was so at the North
End Park, to the exclusion of the
smaller boys, for whom the playground
was especially intended. The North
End boy, if asked three years ago
why he did not play ball at the
North End Park, would have an-
swered, "Oh, dere's a tough crowd
down dere who would knock the
stuffin' out of yer."

And on the playgrounds too small
for baseball the big boys to some ex-
tent interfere, and the little boys are
apt to interfere with each other.
Among boys below twelve years old
the spirit of organization is very
feeble, and it takes but little dis-
couragement in the way of over-
crowding to weaken it to the point
where the forces of anarchy are the
stronger. In the city the tendency
to anarchy is stronger than in the
country, because the opportunity
for organized play is much less.
Although it is for many children the
best playground they have, the
average city street, with its con-
stant interruption from traffic (and,
in the case of most games also from
the police) is not a place where any
consecutive or highly organized

Wood Island

game can be carried on. The steril-
izing process is there carried to ics
highest point; and its effect is in the
highest degree dissipating (in the
literal and correct sense of the word
of scattering, disintegrating). The
purposes of the street boy are ha-
bitually, as it were, chopped into
short lengths. He acquires the
interrupted habit of mind to which
consecutive effort and continuous pur-
pose become increasingly difficult. His
attitude becomes a passive and critical
rather than an active and constructive
one. The boy feels himself a specta-
tor at a continuous performance; a
drunk, an arrest, a fire-alarm fur-
nishing the main catastrophies, the
rest of the drama being made up of
family life carried on largely out of
doors.

It is the function of the play-
ground to counteract this sterilizing
influence by opportunity for or-
ganized play, and to serve that
purpose supervision is necessary.

Upon this matter of the need of
supervision, and of how it is to
be provided, our lesson has come
from New York. While we were pur-
chasing the sites where our play-
grounds were yet to be, the New York
open-spaces movement had, in
this respect, outstripped our own.
Beginning with Mayor Hewitt's
recommendation in 1887 for small
parks in the down-town districts, it
had, through the ten-years' battle
so dramatically described by Jacob
A. Riis, finally come to fruition,
first in the destruction of the slum of
Mulberry Bend and the substitution
there and at Corlears Hook of two
open grassy spaces, and next in the
final clearing (in 1899), of Seward
Park, and in the development of the
last named, and of Hudson Bank and
other open spaces as outdoor gymnasi-
ums and playgrounds by the New
York Outdoor Recreation League, —
William B. Stover, secretary and
fighting representative. The school

533

N I HtiWWWMHW

Spring Street Bath

committee is this year carry-
ing on good work at "Ham Fish"
Park on the lower East Side, and
though Seward Park has for the
time relapsed to undirected barren-
ness, it will soon be better than ever
in equipment, and well provided
with instructors, under Mayor
Low's reform Park Commission.

Spurred on partly by the example
of New York, the Massachusetts
Civic League, in April, 1900, started
an experiment at North End Park;
an experiment which has so far
succeeded as an object lesson that
the Bath Department took up the
work the next season and the
League has moved to another play-
ground. The most important idea
which the League, through its instruc-
tors, has emphasized, has been the idea
of loyalty. For, strange as it may ap-
pear to those who do not know him,
the great undeveloped capacity of the
city boy is the faculty of loyalty, the
faculty which among boys makes the
devoted member of the team, and
531

among men is the essential qualifi-
cation of the citizen. I am speak-
ing now of the city boy of eleven
or twelve years of age or over. Of
the small city boy, as of every other
small boy, it is true, as I have said,
that the organizing faculty is
especially weak; but his elder brother
has the same capacity for loyalty to
the team or friends that we observe in
his more fortunate contemporary at
private school or college.

In the many articles in our maga-
zines on the subject of city children
''the gang" occupies a prominent place,
and deservedly so. It is the one great
institution which the American city
boy has produced. The story of its
misdeeds and shortcomings is a famil-
iar one. The best it seems capable of
in outward achievement would appear
to be a low form of political intrigue;
while the worst, if we include such
instances as the Tunnel Gang,
to which Dick Croker belonged,
reaches as far as murder. And yet
the crimes and shortcomings of the

BOSTON'S PLAYGROUND SYSTEM

535

gang are not, I think, characteristic
of the street boy; certainly they
have no essential connection with
the fundamental impulse of which the
gang is the embodiment. On the con-
trary, that impulse is, once for all and
entirely, a good impulse. It is one
without which society could not exist,
— it is, indeed, the social or organizing
impulse itself. The gang is simply a
rudimentary form of political organi-
zation. The bearing of this fact on
the playground question is through
the further fact that at the period of
life at which the gang is the natural
embodiment of the political in-
stinct, the military impulse is also
dominant, so that games of strength
and skill are the forms in which this
primitive social unit will find its
natural expression. The gang may,
as a matter of fact, be engaged at
present largely in lawlessness and
may fall a victim to the idleness
out of which lawlessness so often
springs. But lawlessness is nev-
ertheless, not the necessary nor the
most natural outlet for its energies.
Give the gang a chance to develop it-
self into a baseball nine or a football
team and experience has already '
shown that it will eagerly embrace
such an opportunity as expressing
its more natural bent.

In short, it is a function of the play-
ground to take this great primal force
of budding loyalty in our city boys,
now perverted by lack of opportunity
into the ways of lawlessness, and turn
it to its natural work of building up in
these boys the future citizen. The
great facts to be recognized are,
first, that the gang spirit is. good ;
second, that whether you like it or
not it is there, and must, in one way

or another, be recognized. It is the
part of the wise educator to make
use of the forces he has to deal with,
not to work against them.

One thing I should like to be per-
mitted to say in conclusion. Do
not let us imagine that what we
have already accomplished is the
whole or even a very large propor-
tion of what has got to be done.

What is it to give four thousand
children a chance to play in a brick-
paved school yard for ten weeks in
summer? There are ninety thousand
school children in Boston, and prob-
ably not more than a third get out of
town on "Country Week" and to see
their friends ; and these for only a
short time. I speak here not from
guesswork, but from a study of
summer outings made in two typi-
cal schools. Two million baths do
mean something; but that is only in
the summer months ; the baths begin
in June and close in September.
"Nine months is a long time between
baths," as I hope the Mayor of Boston
will soon be saying to the Mayor of
New York. Skating is a great thing,
and we have more than a dozen
places for it ; but how many days'
skating are there? On some of
these places, perhaps fifteen ; on the
best ones seldom more than forty.
And these two are our best periods
— the summer and the skating sea-
son. During the spring and fall we
are heinously unprovided. We have
not invented, nor do we promote,
space-economizing games ; and we
have baseball space for only a very
small fraction of our baseball popu-
lation. I speak of the boys, who
have been the beneficiaries of almost
all that we have so far done. I say

536

TWO ABOLITIONISTS

nothing of the girls, of whose pres-
ence among us we have apparently
only 'just begun to take cognizance.
A careful study of juvenile arrests
in Boston, both in the city as a
whole and in certain police districts
where baths' and playgrounds had
been started, and showing the ar-
rests for every month of the eleven
years from 1889 to 1899, inclusive,
fails to give any important statis-
tical indication of the effects of these
places on the numbers arrested, al-
though the total number fell off a
little during that period. But ob-
servation and experience with the
children at any well-managed play-
ground, and the testimony of school-

teachers and police, go strongly to
show that such things do have an
effect, and that what we need to do
for the tough city boy or girl, and
for the good ones, too, is to give
their natural powers and impulses a
chance to develop in a natural way.
When a child is brought to trial in
our courts the proceedings ought,
in nine cases out of ten, to be sup-
plemented by the prosecution of the
solid citizen who objects to spend-
ing money on giving the city boy or
girl a chance.

It is a question of turning the steam
into the cylinder instead of allow-
ing it to escape or to blow up the
machine.

Reminiscences of Two Abolitionists

By Lillie B. Chace Wyman

IT was my good fortune in early
girlhood to spend a few sum-
mer weeks on a farm in
Worcester County, Massachu-
setts, my hosts the abolitionists,
Stephen S. and Abby Kelley Foster.
They were a thoroughly united
pair, completely one in affection and
purpose, but it is doubtful if it ever
occurred to any one who knew them
to speak or think of the wife as
Mrs. Stephen Foster. They had
come to love each other in conse-
quence of association in a struggle
of grim incident and grand signifi-
cance,— a struggle which had led
them to perhaps underestimate the
value of many social conventions.

He was one of those unique char-
acters who come to the front in
periods of storm and stress. In
an antislavery or woman's rights
meeting, he might have been most
fitly described by the lines which
Lowell wrote about Theodore Par-
ker:

"Every word that he speaks has been

fierily furnaced
In the blast of a life that has struggled

in earnest."
He was logical to the point of un-
reason. Mary Grew, one of the
Philadelphia abolitionsts, said of
him in later years, smiling the while
at some recollection, ''Logic was the
death of Stephen!" His style of
argument was as follows : slavery is

TWO ABOLITIONISTS

537

the sum of villanies, such as theft,
murder and rapine; the Southern
church supports slavery, hence
Southern clergymen are guilty of all
villanies ; Northern clergymen ex-
tend the right hand of fellowship to
Southern clergymen, thus they con-
done and partake of their guilt.
From such general premises he
would proceed with unfaltering en-
ergy to the close personal conclu-
sion, that the Rev. X., a North-
ern gentleman of the most amiable
character conceivable, was guilty,
before God, of theft, murder and
rapine. An argument of this sort
was presented one Sunday after-
noon to Theo. Brown, Harry Blake
and John C. Wyman of Worcester,
to their utter discomfort and be-
wilderment. Blake, who loved the
Rev. Mr. X., was a Transcendental-
ist of that New England type of
character which is helpless in the
clutches of its conscience and can be
frightened into the conviction that
anything is sinful by the mere sug-
gestion that it may be. "Foster has
proved it," lamented Blake to his
lighter minded companions, as they
all walked away after the argument,
"Foster has proved that X. is a mur-
derer and a thief, — and yet he
isn't!"

Mr. Foster was, as nearly as it is
possible for a man to be, free from
unkind personal feeling. His atti-
tude towards opponents was always
such as once impelled him to say in
a public meeting, "I love my friend
Higginson, but I loathe his opinions."
In his home life, as I knew him, this
doughty warrior upon evil was the
most lovable of men,, gently lenient
to our chattering impertinence, and

sympathetically disposed to the
spirits of youth.

He was a sturdy farmer of his
New England fields. "I should hate
farming in the West," he once said.
"I should hate to put my spade into
ground where it did not hit against
a rock." His features were as
rugged as the rocks he loved, and
his hands were hard and gnarled
with toil. His gestures were un-
gainly, but his voice was beautiful.
His eyes were blue and kind, but
sometimes there was a look in
them as of a man, bent indeed on
going his appointed way in this
world, but who did not always see
a light upon that way.

Foster made his antislavery lec-
turing trips devotedly, as on a cru-
sade to possess the Lord's tomb, but
theologically and religiously he was
the child of his generation. The lack
of sympathy on the part of the
Northern churches with the anti-
slavery movement, and the open
support given to slavery by many
ministers, North and South, had its
inevitable result in the minds of
most abolitionists. It destroyed
their belief in the value of the church
as an institution, and was, accord-
ing to historical necessity, accom-
panied by much question as to the
truth of the abstract doctrines
taught. And this questioning was
rendered keener and more fruitful of
revolt by the theological and re-
ligious speculation arising at the
same time in the wake of the Uni-
tarian, the Universalist and the
Transcendental movements. Re-
volt is the parent of revolt. The
abolitionists underwent changes of
belief, and some of them, after re-

538

TWO ABOLITIONISTS

nouncing their original definite
system of theology, never formu-
lated for themselves any other, and
yet all study of their lives and their
work will fail to reveal the secret of
their power, if the religious char-
acter of both be not clearly appre-
hended.

The only daughter of Stephen
and Abby Foster writes of their re-
ligious opinion in their later years :

"My mother believed firmly in
a great divine power, the Go(o)d,
but not in a God with whom she
could hold personal relations as a
child does with its parent. I have
heard her tell with a smile, that
when she was a child she used to
imagine God looking like a venerable
Friend, sitting in a big chair in the
garret. Her belief was that the
Creator was too great and good for
the feeble and imperfect natures of
his creatures to comprehend. The
truths which he puts into our souls
and into nature are the only part of
himself that He allows us to know.
But as our lives develop in future
ages we shall grow more like Him
and know Him more and more. She
was sure of this continued existence
— a life of labor, not of rest, for she
believed that only by struggle could
the spiritual and intellectual powers
be developed. Her religious belief
was a part of her very being and
gave a calmness and peace to her
later life which enabled her to live
or die with equal resignation.

"With my father it was different.
The longer he lived the stronger be-
came his doubts. His only relief was
in labor, and when health failed,
and he could do nothing to better
the conditions of humanity, his

agony was intense. He could see no
righteousness in the conduct of the
world, and he was not reconciled to
the existence of evil. The one thing
he was sure of was that it was right
and wise for him to follow the dic-
tates of his conscience. He was not
sure of immortality, but he longed
to end this life of suffering, even if
his spirit were to be annihilated.
When work was done, life was only
death to him."

Much of the more strenuous
reform labor done by this hus-
band and wife was performed
before their opinions had settled
into the grooves indicated in
their daughter's letter. Such as
they were, doubts and beliefs were
alike the spoils wrung from the
enemy in a most sincere battle with
life, a "death grapple in the dark-
ness 'twixt old systems and the
Word."

There was more effect in Foster
than in his wife of what may be
called richness of nature. She was
one of those persons in whom heart,
intellect and conscience are undis-
turbed by temperament, while in
him it was an atmosphere which
trailed its own mists and colors
across the true image of his char-
acter. The study of Stephen Fos-
ter's life during the years before he
married Abby Kelley covers one of
those obscure portions of history,
the knowledge of which is neces-
sary to a perfect comprehension of
the action that nations take in criti-
cal hours. The seed that he sowed
in many a New England valley, and
scattered over the plains of Ohio,
ripened red and rich on Southern
battlefields.

TWO ABOLITIONISTS

539

Stephen Symonds Foster was the
ninth in a family of thirteen chil-
dren and was born in Canterbury,
New Hampshire, in November, 1809.
His father, Colonel Asa Foster, had
been a Revolutionary soldier. His
mother was a beautiful and gracious
woman, and she and her husband
both lived to be nearly a hundred
years old. The home was a farm
of several hundred acres,, situated
on a hillside overlooking the Mer-
rimac. Stephen, predestined by
every faculty of his being to do a
reformer's work in the world, began
his service on earth as a carpenter
and builder. At twenty-two he en-
tered upon a course of collegiate
study to prepare himself for the
ministry of the Orthodox Congrega-
tional Church. The son of a soldier,
he had already adopted the princi- '
pie of non-resistance, and when he
was called on while in Dartmouth
College to perform military duty, he
refused, was arrested, and put into
jail in Haverhill. He found the jail
in a terribly unsanitary condition.
Men were there imprisoned for debt
as well as for crime. . Stephen
moved among these wretched crea-
tures like a pitying angel, receiving
their confidences and observing
their condition, after which he pub-
lished an indignant letter calling at-
tention to the state of affairs. This
protest excited so much interest that
an effort was made to clean the
prison, when the filth on the floors
was found to be so deep and hard
that men were obliged to dig it up
with pickaxes. The reform in this
jail led to investigation and. an ef-
fective movement to improve the
whole prison system of New Hamp-

shire, as a consequence of which
imprisonment for debt was soon
abolished.

His college studies finished,
Stephen entered, for a theological
course, the Union Seminary in New
York. Here something occurred,
which probably had much to do with
teaching him that he could not labor
within the fold of the American
church. A question as to boun-
daries seemed at that time to
threaten the peace between the
United States and Great Britain.
Being opposed to war for any cause
whatever, Stephen and a few of his
friends proposed to hold a meeting
for prayer and conference in rela-
tion to this shadowy menace of con-
flict. He asked the use of a lec-
ture room for this purpose, and was
surprised as well as grieved to find
the faculty of the seminary, not
only unwilling to grant the room,
but unfavorable to the holding of
such a meeting anywhere. He had
already begun to be uneasy at the
attitude of the churches towards
slavery, and now arose in his mind
a new misgiving and a doubt
whether the church as a whole main-
tained its claim to the Christian
name and character. But still the
Orthodox faith and the desire to be
a minister died hard in him. In
1834 he was teaching in a small
country town, and it is recorded of
him that his religious influence
was so strong that it was largely
due to him that nearly every one
of his scholars who had passed the
fifteenth year became converted and
joined the church, while the venera-
ble minister of the place commended
him, saying that "with young Mr.

540

TWO ABOLITIONISTS

Foster evidently was the secret of
the Lord!"

In this same year Foster made the
acquaintance of Parker Pillsbury, a
dark-eyed, broad-shouldered youth,
also a teacher hoping and working
to become a minister. Foster gave
him lessons in ethics which made of
him an abolitionist, and the hearts
of the two men clave at once to each
other. Pillsbury had the tempera-
ment of a Hebrew prophet, and
when he spoke against the institu-
tion which his soul abhorred, it was
in the language of Jeremiah, and
with a voice whose rich melancholy
tones could never be forgotten by
the ears that heard them.

Pillsbury was an unordained min-
ister looking forward to a settlement
when he received a copy of the fol-
lowing questions sent by a commit-
tee whose chairman was Stephen
Foster, to all the ministers of the
New Hampshire county in which
he was preaching:

i. Do you, or do you not believe that
a man's right to liberty is derived from
God, and is therefore inalienable?

2. Do you regard slaveholding, under
all circumstances, as a sin against God,
and an immorality ?

3. Do you approve and support the
principles and measures of the American
Antislavery Society and kindred organiza-
tions?

4. Do you allow the claims of the Anti-
slavery Society the same prominence in
the pulpit exercises of the Sabbath as
those of other benevolent institutions?

5. Are the slave-owners excluded from
the communion of the church to which
you minister, and slave-owning ministers
from the pulpit?

6. Are you in favor of withdrawing all
Christian fellowship from slave-owners?

7. Are you in favor of supporting such
benevolent institutions as admit slave-
owners to participate in their manage-

ment, and knowingly receive into their
treasuries the avails of the unrequited
toil of the slave, and the human flesh auc-
tions of the South?

It was not until 1839 that Foster
entirely relinquished his purpose to
become a minister. By that time his
experience in antislavery work had
shown him the utter impossibility
of any such service for him. For
some years he pursued the ordinary
life of the peregrinating antislavery
apostle of his day, going from town
to town, almost begging people to
come to hear his message. In few
places could he get an adequate
hearing. The church dignitaries
forbade him the use of their meet-
ing-houses, and if he obtained
places in which to speak, they for-
bade the people to go to hear his
gospel. The town of Stratham fur-
nished a couple of amusing inci-
dents to the history of this tragi-
comic warfare between a reformer
and the nation which he sought to
reform. Once he and Pillsbury
found there a meeting-house opened
and warmed for them at the hour
for which they had requested it, but
not a soul came to sit on its benches
and listen to their words. Foster
made a second visit in the next
springtime to the town, and a dozen
persons gathered in the hall, and he
began his address. Suddenly, when
he was in the middle of a sentence,
every one of his hearers arose, prob-
ably at some prearranged signal,
and walked solemnly and quietly
out of the room, leaving him with
mouth open, and arms in the air, his
gesture half made, and his spirit
perhaps more disconcerted than at
any other moment of his life.

In the summer of 1841, a three-

TWO ABOLITIONISTS

541

days' convention was held in Nan-
tucket Island, and there Frederick
Douglass, then a young and un-
known fugitive slave, made a great
speech, which was a revelation
alike to the abolitionists and to him-
self of his capacities. Parker Pills-
bury came away from this conven-
tion much excited but also much
dissatisfied with all past achieve-
ments. He wrote to Foster: "After
all, I must come to New Hampshire,
brother Stephen. The rocks must
echo there the coming era, and the
adjacent hills must reply, as we pro-
claim through the state the doc-
trines and demands of universal
brotherhood of man. We must
show ourselves what we are already
called, 'dangerous men.' Devise
some plan, if you can, by which we
may improve on the operations of
the past. If we scourged the pro-
slavery church and clergy last year
with whips, let us this year chastise
them with scorpions ! To the popu-
lar prevailing denomination we are
infidels indeed, and we mean to be,
and are willing to be scandalized
as such."

A month after this letter was
written, Foster answered its appeal
to inaugurate new methods. On the
seventeenth of September, 1841, he
went in to the old North Church,
the first Congregational church in
Concord, New Hampshire, and just
as the minister was about to begin
his sermon, he stood up and in a
solemn and dignified manner claimed
the right, in his character as a man
and a Christian, to be heard in be-
half of the people who were enslaved
in this country. He was seized by
two keepers of the state prison who

were present and was dragged out
of the church.

After Foster's death, Parker Pills-
bury made a memorial address and
his comments on this incident and
on Foster's later career offer such
a complete exposition of the situa-
tion as it appeared to these two
comrades in reform, and is of such
historical value because of its testi-
mony to the autocratic character of
the New England churches of the
period, that it is necessary to make
some lengthy quotation from it.
Pillsbury referred to the Concord
episode and then said, "From that
time, a system of operations was
commenced, unlike anything that
had been known to this country be-
fore, especially as relating to the
subject of American slavery. What
else could the man do? What else
could any earnest man do? Emer-
son had said a little while before,
'Let the world beware when the
gods let a man loose in it.' From
that hour there was a man loose
in the world, and instinctively
church and clergy found it out.
That was his method — what other
could have been so effectual?
Scarcely any of us agreed with him.
I knew him well or I should not
have agreed with him. I knew the
zeal, bravery and devotion, the
religious devotion, using that word
in its highest sense, of that man's
soul, and I knew he was inspired
with the very spirit of the Highest,
and I could afford to stand by him.
I am proud that I did." Mr, Pills-
bury spoke. of "the extreme guilt of
the church and clergy in their con-
nection with slavery," and added,
"by church and clergy, I mean all

54:

TWO ABOLITIONISTS

the great popular and religious de-
nominations in the land at that time.
I know of but one doctor of divinity
at that time in the evangelical
church or pulpit of America who
was not at least an apologist for the
slaveholder; and that one was the
Rev. Albert Barnes of Philadelphia.
I don't think there was a university
or college in America that wouM
have made a doctor of divinity of
any denomination, who was not
known as an apologist for slavery.
There were circumstances in which
we obtained a hearing; but these
were rare. As an instance of the
power of the church, the venerable
Dr. Beecher, the father and founder
of the Beecher house of clergy, de-
clared he could tell of a minister
who, having preached in his parish
for fifty years, became the patriarch
of the village, and once when a lec-
turer came there to speak, whom
he thought the people ought not to
hear, he went out and walked up
one side of the street and down the
other, telling the people they had
better not go, and every soul stayed
at home." Reference was also
made by Pillsbury to the clerical
letter issued once in Massachusetts,
"where the ground was taken that
we had no right to go into a village
where there was a stated minister,
to attempt to inculcate doctrines
which he disapproved." "Now,"
continued the old abolitionist, vet-
eran of a thousand moral battles,
"since they would not preach the
truth, nor allow us to speak to the
people, so far as they could prevent
it, what was left for an earnest man
to do? I see no need of any defence
for the course pursued. He claimed

the right as a Christian and a man,
and always proceeded, New Testa-
ment in hand, and New Testament
on his ever-ready tongue, as his
apology and defence."

A few passages from the me-
morial address made by Wendell
Phillips on the same occasion help
to bring vividly before us the unique
and noble personality of Stephen
Foster :

"However much mob violence
might seek his life, and drunken
madness resist his exhortation,
the average public felt the majes-
ty of the man. It is a mistake
to say that he ever 'scolded'; he
never uttered anything but the ho-
liest and loftiest indignation, and
they who heard it, those who looked
into his eye, and were thrilled by
his voice, knew that it came from
the depths of the most compassion-
ate and gentlest of souls. Foster
could not have grown up anywhere
but in New England. He was born
of the Old Testament, and he knew
thoroughly the New England that
was similarly bred to himself. At-
home in every part of the Bible, fa-
miliar with its text and full of its
spirit, he and the best part of his
audience met on a common ground.

"The ground he tilled never
needed another cultivation. So,
when men said to me, in years gone
by, 'Stephen is erratic,' 'Stephen
lacks judgment,' 'Stephen repels
more than he attracts/ I pointed
them to towns where he had la-
bored, to the homes he brought
within the circle of antislavery in-
fluence, to the men whom he per-
suaded to lay life and all they had
on the altar. You are not to-day,

TWO ABOLITIONISTS

543

the younger portion of you, in a con-
dition to measure the vastness of the
sacrifice that men were called upon
to make in 1835 and 1840. You do
not know how bitter, how unrelent-
ing, how persistent, how ingenious
was the opposition. It needed some-
thing to shake New England and
stun it into listening. He was the
man, and offered himself for the
martyrdom. He never bored you,
as some reformers do, with his virtue
or his 'causes.' In private he could
pass, more easily than many men,
from grave to gay, and he was the
sunshine of any circle, enjoying wit
and every kind of intellectual life.
He had no atom of envy or jealousy
or conceit, and trusted his friends
without stint. But he never trifled.
You felt he had a great work to do,
and 'could not come down' to your
worldly and carkling level. You
approached him with respectful def-
erence, and strove to rise to what
you knew was his atmosphere. The
best took no liberties with him. He
made the atmosphere in which he
was, and men accommodated them-
selves to it and him."

Stephen Foster's daughter said
once of her parents, "My mother
found it hard to like people with
whom she differed, but my father
loved everybody." As a, speaker,
Foster was forcible and witty, and
very ready in retort. One of the
stories told of him is that on one
occasion a slaveholder, availing
himself of the freedom of speech
always granted on the antislavery
platform, ventured upon it to argue
in behalf of the "peculiar 'institu-
tion." Foster contradicted some as-
sertion made by this man, who, in

return, asked indignantly, "Do you
think I would lie?" "Well," re-
turned Stephen, in his rich, kindly
voice, "I don't know as you would
lie, but I do know that you will
steal."

During the years of the early for-
ties, Foster and Parker Pillsbury
travelled much together on their
apostolic errands. They collected
money for their "cause," but let
their own needs wait. After a meet-
ing in Pembroke, N. H., the two
comrades secured one bed, and also
lodging and care for the horse with
which they were driving across the
country from meeting to meeting,
but they went supperless to their
own slumbers. The next morning
they spent four cents for baker's
biscuits, and four more for raisins,
and sitting down by the stove in the
store where they had made their
purchases, they broke their long
fast. This trip lasted eight days,
and when they returned to Concord,
N. H., which was Pillsbury's home,
they found that although they had
induced a goodly number of people
to subscribe five dollars each
towards liquidating an antislavery
publishing debt, they had left as
salary for their labors just thirty-
seven cents. Pillsbury, who had a
delicate wife, tells the story in his
"Acts of the Antislavery Apostles,"
and admits that he did not smile,
though Foster may have done so,
when the latter commented genial-
ly on the situation, by saying,
"Well, Parker, I have no wife and
you have; so this time we will not
divide." Pillsbury went home to
find his wife without money, and
so nearly destitute of food that he

544

TWO ABOLITIONISTS

broke a resolution which he had
formed never to be in debt, and con-
tracted a grocery bill for three dol-
lars, the money to pay which came
in some almost miraculous manner
before night.

A typical experience occurred to
Foster in May, 1842. He tried to
obtain the loan of a place in Am-
herst in which to speak. The meet-
ing-houses were all refused, and ap-
parently for no reason except aver-
sion to his subject, save in the case
of the Universalist Church, which
was engaged for another purpose at
the desired time. Foster then asked
the Baptist and the two Congrega-
tional ministers of the town to per-
mit him to address their congrega-
tions at the regular meetings on the
next day, which was Sunday. They
all refused, but on that Saturday
evening he attended a meeting in
the vestry of one of the Congrega-
tional churches, and spoke for twen-
ty minutes to the audience there as-
sembled, and received respectful
attention. The next forenoon he
reflected calmly upon the situation,
offered "fervent prayer for divine
guidance," and then wended his way
to the Baptist Church. The minis-
ter, who was about to begin his ser-
mon when Foster arose, took the
alarm, and called out to him to be
silent, as he wished to go on with
the regular services. Foster gave
no heed to this 'but proceeded to
speak, whereupon a deacon sprang
at him from behind, and as Foster
would not forcibly resist force, suc-
ceeded in speedily dragging him off
the platform, which he had mounted,
and three or four other men lend-

ing their assistance, carried the in-
terloper into the street. Once out
in the open air, Foster asked the
deacon if he was his prisoner, and
was told that he was not. Being
then released, the undaunted aboli-
tionist turned immediately to go
back into the church, whereupon the
deacon and his associates caught
him again and this time held on to
him. A messenger was dispatched
for the constable who was found at-
tending service in the Universalist
Church. This village dignitary came
hastily to the scene, and, aided by
the deacon, dragged Foster along the
road, holding him by the arms and
collar. They thus conveyed him
some fifteen rods, to a tavern, where
they tumbled him on to the bar room
floor. Foster would never, on occa-
sions like this, help his captors by
voluntary locomotion, and so it
chanced that, a little later, he was
carried up two flights of stairs, and
thrown into a small room, where he
was left in charge of two keepers.

"Having secured me," he says, "in
this temporary prison, the deacon
returned to his meeting, to tender
to the church the emblems of the
body and blood of the Prince of
Peace. During the evening one of
my keepers left. The other re-
mained through the night, and slept
with his clothes on, the door locked
and the lamp burning. Indeed, I
was as strictly guarded as though
I had been a felon, waiting only an
opportunity to escape. At ten
o'clock on Monday morning I was
put on trial before Israel Hunt.
The complaint set forth that I had
entered the Baptist meeting-house

TWO ABOLITIONISTS

545

'with force and arms,' and disturbed
the meeting by making a noise, by
rude and indecent behavior, etc., etc.
Mr. Pratt testified that I treated
him 'ungentlemanly.' On being
asked what I said or did that was
ungentlemanly, he could not recol-
lect, he said, then, but he was cer-
tain, very, that I treated him 'ungen-
tlemanly.' As I do not acknowledge
allegiance to any human power, I
made no defence. I asked the wit-
nesses some questions, and said a
few words, but they were designed
to influence the audience present,
rather than the decison of Mr. Hunt.
In that I felt no interest. Mr.
Hunt's sentence was that I pay a
fine of three dollars and costs of
prosecution ; intimating that a repe-
tition of the offence would be fol-'
lowed by a much heavier penalty.
I assured him I had done my duty
in attempting to preach the gospel
to the Baptists, and it was contrary
to my sense of propriety to pay a
fine for it. Mr. Hunt then ordered
me to be imprisoned in Amherst
jail till the fine was paid. At ten
o'clock the next day this order was
carried into effect, by my incarcera-
tion in this loathsome prison, where
duty to God and my countrymen re-
quires me to remain at present. Re-
lief is kindly offered me from vari-
ous sources, whenever I shall think
proper to accept it. But I feel that
the object is not yet accomplished
that my heavenly Father had in
view in sending me to this dismal
abode. And till that is done, I have
no wish to be relieved. To one as
restless as I am, imprisonment is
oppressive. I can now surely 're-

member them that are in bonds, as
bound with them.' "

It was not at all certain to these
itinerant apostles of freedom that
death at the hands of the mob might
not be their final portion. Pillsbury
admits that he always dreaded an
encounter with mob violence, though
his courage invariably rose to meet
it when the hour of its fury had fair-
ly set in, but he never discerned in
Foster any signs of agitation, either
while the tempest of human wrath
was gathering or after it had burst
over their heads. Yet in a letter
Foster speaks as though he had
dreaded to enter upon the path he
was pursuing, not indeed from fear
of bodily injury, but because he
shrank from the contumely and
mockery to which he must expose
himself. "I was a slave," he says,
"I am a slave no longer. My lips
have been sealed by man. They
will never be again till sealed in
death. My body is freely yielded to
the persecutors to torture at pleas-
ure. But my spirit must and shall
be free."

One Sunday Foster attempted to
speak during the forenoon meeting
in the South Church of Concord,
New Hampshire, and having been
summarily ejected from the build-
ing, he went again in the afternoon,
and began his harangue the moment
he entered the body of the house.
He was dragged out by some young
men, who did not wait even to re-
ceive orders from the pulpit. These
fellows handled their victim so
roughly that he was hurt to such an
extent that his companion, Pills-
bury, was alarmed and had to ven-
ture into the church again to sum-

546

TWO ABOLITIONISTS

mon the doctor forth from the sanc-
tuary. Foster was then taken to
the home of a sympathizing friend,
and there he remained till the next
afternoon, when the sheriff came to
arrest him. Pillsbury and other
friends, having heard of the proposed
arrest, proceeded to the house to
behold a scene as in a comedy, but it
was a comedy with a significance
which had to do with grave issues
in the history of reform. Foster
was found to be still very lame as
an effect of the yesterday's encoun-
ters, and he was seated in an easy-
chair. The sheriff did not wholly
relish the job he had in hand, and
was as polite as possible. "Mr. Fos-
ter,'' he said, "I have authority here
to take you before Judge Badger, to
answer to a charge of disturbing
public worship." Foster replied
blandly, "I do not know of any busi-
ness between me and my friend
Badger requiring my attendance to-
day, and must decline to answer
your call."

The sheriff insisted, but very
kindly, and undoubtedly with much
misgiving as to the outcome of
the interview with this terrible,
non-resistant antagonist. Foster
would not, and indeed could not,
easily stir to accompany the officer
of the law, so at last that worth}'
requested some of Foster's anti-
slavery friends who were in the
room to help carry his desired pris-
oner out to the carriage. The abo-
litionists refused to give their aid,
but Foster himself good naturedly
suggested that the minister and the
young heroes of the preceding day
would be the proper helpers on this
occasion. Meanwhile the townsfolk

gathered in excited groups about
the house. Public sympathy ap-
pears to have been with Foster, for
the sheriff had difficulty in persuad-
ing any man to come to his aid.
"Finally, one member of the church
and a working man not of the church
came in with the officer, and taking
Foster gently in their hands and
arms, bore him bareheaded to the
door and placed him on the carriage
seat. The sheriff said that it was 'a
very unpleasant duty to perform,'
which we well understood before.
A crowd followed the prisoner to
the judgment hall. It was on the
second story, and the stairway
being narrow, it was truly a ludi-
crous operation for the officer and
his posse to climb it with so un-
seemly a burden. Foster said after-
wards that he felt rather serious
than otherwise, till ascending the
stairs, feet foremost, high above his
head, and yet handled with the ut-
most caution, he could not help
laughing outright, and did not re-
cover his gravity again through the
whole farcical trial."

The trial had the characteristic
peculiarity which the prisoner was
apt to impart to such occasions in
his experience. He disconcerted
one witness who testified that Fos-
ter had violated the regulations of
the church, by asking whether it
would be contrary to those regula-
tions to come into the church and
give the alarm if the child of the
witness were being kidnapped.
When the bothered man had been
forced to admit that he did not think
that would be an unjustifiable in-
terruption of the services, Foster
drew his prompt conclusion, and

TWO ABOLITIONISTS

547

asked if it would 'be violating the
regulations of the South Church to
give alarm when two millions and a
half of the witness's countrymen
were being kidnapped. The au-
dience listened with delight to Fos-
ter, and the poor witness cried in
despair, "These questions are asked
for sport."

Pillsbury claims that there was
no existing law against which Fos-
ter had really offended, but the
judge was determined to convict,
and he sentenced the prisoner to
pay a fine of five dollars and costs.
Immediately the men in court, who
were listening, threw the necessary
money on the table. These con-
tributors were not professed aboli-
tionists, and their action convinced
the judge that the people of Con-
cord were not with him in his de-
cision, so he made a hasty moral
retreat, and remitted the fine. Fos-
ter had, of course, protested against
the recognition of the sentence im-
plied by the payment of the fine, but
his friends had not heeded him, and
now that the court refused the
money, they handed it to him, and
he accepted it as a contribution to
the antislavery cause.

The people of Lynn, Massachu-
setts, passed a very exciting Sunday
during the year of 1842. , On the
Saturday evening, Parker Pillsbury,
Nathaniel P. Rogers, Stephen Fos-
ter and Thomas Parnell Beach all
found themselves in the town, and
immediately began to lay plans for
vigorous work to be done on the
morrow. Foster went to Mr. Cook,
the Congregational minister, and re-
quested to be allowed to preach for
him at some one of the Sunday ser-

vices. Mr. Cook refused, and then
the abolitionist asked if the use of
the church might be granted for an
antislavery meeting at five in the
afternoon, or at any other hour when
it was not needed for ordinary pur-
poses. Mr. Cook refused this re-
quest also, and added gratuitously
the threat that if Foster ever came
into the house to speak without in-
vitation, he should be "taken care
of." Mr. Foster replied with unruf-
fled serenity that it was uncertain
where he should speak the next day,
but probably somewhere in Lynn.
Meanwhile, Pillsbury and Beach
visited Overseer Nathan Breed of
the Friends' Society, and asked of
him permission to occupy the
Friends' meeting-house during a
part of Sunday. When this request
was refused, the two agitators told
Breed that he must not be surprised
if they spoke in the regular meeting.
This would be a proceeding pre-
sumably in complete harmony with
the principles and practices of
Friends, and Breed answered to the
suggestion, "You will find us a
peaceable people."

The next day, June twenty-fifth,
was a lovely day, and the abolition-
ists sallied forth in the perfect
weather, to bear their testimony
upon practical righteousness. Fos-
ter, Pillsbury and Rogers repaired
to Mr. Cook's church, and as soon
as the long prayer was finished,
Foster, who had -been standing with
the rest of the congregation, instead
of sitting down, began at once to
speak. His manner was solemn and
his voice low and serious. "Sit
down," cried the indignant minister ;
and "Sit down, sir," he cried again;

548

TWO ABOLITIONISTS

and as the deep warning voice went
on, the minister thundered out, "I
command you in the name of the
commonwealth to sit down." At this
word the sexton and two other men
seized Foster, and the application
of force to his passive body and non-
resistant soul resulted, this time, in
his being carried out from the
church, face downward, two men
bearing his shoulders between them,
while one comically short man held
on to his ankles, as if they were the
handles to a wheelbarrow. Outside
the edifice they released him, and he
rose to his feet, looked at his captors,
and remarked pleasantly, "This,
then, is your Christianity, is it?"
He further improved the opportuni-
ty by speaking to a number of the
audience who had followed the ri-
diculous procession in which he had
been the principal figure, till the
sexton interrupted, ordering the peo-
ple to go back into the church.
"No breaking in upon worship,
friend sexton," said Rogers. "Don't
drive folks in, if you do drag them
out." This remark broke the ten-
sion of the moment, and sexton
and abolitionists, all Yankees alike,
joined in a good humored burst of
laughter.

After a few minutes more of anti-
slavery exhortation the undismayed
Foster walked across the common
and entered the Baptist meeting-
house, not many rods distant from
the church whence he had just been
expelled. Here he sat down and
waited quietly till the services were
through, then arose and began to
speak as the audience was moving
towards the door. Instantly he was
pounced upon and hurried along the

aisle, out the door and down the
steps with such violence that his
clothing was torn and he somewhat
hurt. He rose from the ground on to
which he had been hurled, addressed
some gentle words to the multitude,
and walked away to the house of
William Bassett, an antislavery
Quaker. Rogers remained, meditat-
ing upon the scene, and some young
Baptists began to rail at him, telling
him that he and his fellow reformers
ought to be tarred and feathered
and cowhided. "Ah," said Rogers,
"does your gospel run like that, my
friends?"

At noon the abolitionists issued
notices that they would hold a meet-
ing that' afternoon at six o'clock, in
Lyceum Hall, which they had se-
cured. Rogers, Beach and Foster
then attended an afternoon meeting
of the Friends' Society. Beach was
a young man who had given up the
Congregational ministry to work for
the slave. He broke the silence of
the Quaker gathering, bearing a tes-
timony against the indifference of
Friends towards the evils of slavery,
war and intemperance, till a Friend
rose from one of the high seats and
said, "Thy speaking is an interrup-
tion of our worship." This was a
rebuke, delivered according to the'
manner sanctioned among Friends,
when it was deemed necessary to
check unwelcome or ill-considered
speech in their meetings. Beach
made answer that he had supposed
speech to be free in Friends' meet-
ings, and proceeded with his re-
marks. Another voice from the
high seats requested his silence, and
finally a third elder got on his feet
and asked to be heard. Beach an-

TWO ABOLITIONISTS

549

swered him in pharaseology akin to
that used by his hearers, saying, "If
anything is revealed to thee, I will
hold my peace." But all that the
elder had to say was again to re-
quest the abolitionist not to disturb
the meeting by further speech, and
Beach went on with his exhortation
and criticism. The elders, now in
despair, gave the signal for closing
the meeting. As the drab-garmented
folk began to pass down the aisles,
William Bassett called, entreating
them to stay and hear the truth.
His mother, an elderly and ven-
erated mother, rushed forward at
this, and with every sign of great
distress begged her son not to
take the part of the abolitionists.
"Mother," said young Bassett, ten-
derly but firmly, "I am about
my heavenly Father's business and
cannot hear thee now." Most of
the older men left the house, but
the women and the young men
lingered to hear Bassett, and when
he had finished, Foster began to
speak with unusual fervor, having
been much moved by the scene be-
tween Bassett and his mother. The
older men now made a rush back
into the house, seized Foster and
hurried him on towards the door.
The young men, however, interfered
energetically, and secured for him at
last a full and free opportunity to
speak in a religious house in Lynn.
When they all finally left the
Quaker meeting-house, Beach took
a notice of the proposed antislavery
meeting to be held in Lyceum Hall
to the First Methodist Church, from
which he was speedily cast out with
a dislocated thumb. Foster went
with a similar notice to the Baptist

Church, whence he had been dragged
only a few hours previously. Both
men intended to wait till the ser-
vices were through before reading
their notices, but Foster, too, was
grabbed and carried out as soon as
he was seen in the church. The
Quakers had torn off part of his coat
collar in their assault upon him, and
the Baptists now tore one of his
sleeve cuffs. More than that, they
actually shut him up for fifteen or
twenty minutes in a dark closet un-
der the staircase, a place where the
sexton kept the lamps, oil cans and
similar utensils belonging to the es-
tablishment.

In the final years of the anti-
slavery conflict conditions had some-
what changed, and Mr. Foster did
not consider it necessary to go unin-
vited into churches, there to inter-
rupt the services with his appeals
and denunciations, but at times,
when he felt with especial pain the
moral indifference of the nation, he
would think of that old method of
his, and tell his friends that he was
not sure but that he should again
hear the inner voice, commanding
him to resume his former habit and
startle the American people into
listening to, the truths which he had
to utter. His life was always "stren-
uous," and it was in the thick of
his contest with the churches that
he wrote a notable letter to Rogers,
dated at Canterbury, New Hamp-
shire, January 15, 1842:

"I am now laid on the shelf for
the present, perhaps for the winter.
Possibly even for a longer period.
Indeed, when I dare look on my
shattered form, I sometimes think
prisons will be needed for me but

550

TWO ABOLITIONISTS

little longer. Within the last fifteen
months four times have they opened
their dismal cells for my reception.
Twenty-four times have my coun-
trymen dragged me from their tem-
ples of worship, and twice have the}^
thrown me with great violence from
the second story of their buildings,
careless of consequences. Once in a
Baptist meeting-house they gave me
an evangelical kick in the side,
which left me for weeks an invalid.
Times out of memory have they
broken up my meetings with vio-
lence, and hunted me with brick-
bats and bad eggs. Once they in-
dicted me for assault and battery.
Once, in the name of outraged law
and justice, have they attempted to
put me in irons. Twice have they
punished me with fine for preaching
the gospel ; and once in a mob of two
thousand people have they delib-
erately attempted to murder me, and
were only foiled in their designs
after inflicting some twenty blows
on my head, face and neck, by the
heroism of a brave and noble woman.
To name her in this besotted age
would be to cast pearls before
swine ; but her name shall be known
in other worlds. Still, I will not

complain, though death should be
found close on my track. My lot is
easy compared with that of those
for whom I labor. I can endure the
prison, but save me from the plan-
tation."

Mobs accompanied the abolition-
ists to the end. Lucy Stone came
later than many into the field of
labor, but Parker Pillsbury once
saw her hit on the head by a large
prayer book hurled across the hall,
and she gives an account of Foster's
facing with her a furious mob on
Cape Cod. It was not till twenty
years after the above letter was
written that slavery was abolished.
Those years in the life of Stephen
Foster can best be studied in his
connection of love and labor with
the woman whom he married. No
permanent record has been made of
much of the work done by this hus-
band and wife. They travelled and
toiled in obscure districts, and only
occasionally do their struggling fig-
ures come clearly into the view of
the student of the times, but always
when thus glimpsed they are seen
to be indeed strange, almost gro-
tesque, but Hebraically impressive
and worthy of utmost reverence.

Hugh Miller's Birthplace

Hugh Miller and His Centenary

By John M. Clarke

THE people of Scotland
have just been celebrating
with unbounded enthu-
siasm the one hundredth
anniversary of the birth of Hugh
Miller.

In America Miller's name is not
very familiar to the younger gener-
ation, but to those in the prime of
life who, thirty or forty years ago,
were reading with susceptible
minds, it recalls diverse impres-
sions : the story of a remarkable
life, telling with wonderful beauty
and cleverness of the rise from hum-
blest beginnings to a conspicuous

and influential climacteric ; the scien-
tific investigations of a geologist
among the rocks and fossils of the
Old Red Sandstone and the lavas
of the Bass Rock ; fulminations
against a crude form of the doctrine
of evolution presented by Robert
Chambers's anonymous but striking
book, "Vestiges of Creation" ; an
occasional glimpse of activity in ec-
clesiastical politics gathered from a
chance allusion to his editorship
of a powerful newspaper ; and finally
the tragic end of a brilliant life
wrecked by long continued over-
work.

551

552

HUGH MILLER AND HIS CENTENARY

Carlyle, not always a genial critic,
characterized Miller's writings as
luminous, memorable, wholesome,
strong, fresh and ' breezy ; Dean
Buckland is credited with saying
that he would give his left hand to
possess Miller's powers of descrip-
tion ; Dickens thought him "a de-
lightful writer"; all quite superflu-
ous expressions to the lover of fine
English and lucid portrayal who has
read "My Schools and Schoolmas-
ters," or "The Scenes and Legends
of the North of Scotland," or to the
geologist of to-day who, in the at-
tempt to produce popularizations of
his science, has lost the combination
in the "Old Red Sandstone," "Foot-
prints of the Creator" and "Rambles
of a Geologist."

Miller has been dead nearly fifty
years but his books are still read with-
out lessening fervor and even those
which embodied his scientific inves-
tigations have not grown old nor use-
less, as is the usual fate of the pub-
lications in a growing science.
Scotland has done well to remem-
ber with so much ardor the cente-
nary of his birth.

Among the deep gashes which the
waters of ocean and land working
together have made in the east
coast of Scotland, and just at the
edge of the Highlands, is the Cro-
marty firth, a noble harbor where
all the navies of the world could
ride in security protected from the
storms without and sentinelled by
two noble headlands fronting the
greater Moray firth and known
as the "Sutors." Along the south
side of this embayment, on a spit of
land which is the remodelled beach
of an ancient and greater firth,

nestles the venerable and quaint vil-
lage of Cromarty, where Hugh Mil-
ler was born on the tenth of Octo-
ber, 1802. Here all his early life
was spent, and his writings are redo-
lent of the town, its natural beau-
ties, its inhabitants, its superstitions,
traditions and history. The travel-
ler who reaches this remote and
peaceful spot, not by railway, for
Cromarty does not reckon this
among its conveniences, but by the
little steam ferry which crosses the
firth at a very oblique angle from
the nearest station, Invergordon,
wanders up gray walled and narrow
streets around the base of the hill
and soon comes upon a low, long
house with straw thatched roof,
grouted walls, and gables facing the
street. This house, built by his
great-grandfather, is the spot where
Miller was born. One must stoop
low on entering to avoid a crushing
blow to hat and head and lower yet
to pass from room to room of this
little biggin. The low-ceiled rooms
of the second story look out through
diminutive windows where the
thatch is carefully cut away, into
the little court in front, and behind
upon the larger and more preten-
tious structure erected by Miller's
father in the days of a brief pros-
perity, but never occupied by him.

Miller's father was a sailor en-
gaged in trade along the coast, but,
like his ancestors for many genera-
tions, he went down with his ship,
leaving Hugh, a little boy of five
years, and two girls still younger to
the charge of the desolate widow.
Not long after, both sisters died to-
gether of scarlet fever and the little
fellow was left alone with his

Hugh Miller

553

554

HUGH MILLER AND HIS CENTENARY

The Dames' School, 1807

mother. The mother had two broth-
ers, "Uncle Sandy" and "Uncle
James," serious minded and saga-
cious workmen, the one a carpen-
ter, the other a saddler, and these
took upon themselves the guidance
of the boy Hugh. No part of Mil-
ler's autobiography is more pleasing
than the tender thread of gratitude
to these uncles which he has woven
throughout his narrative, but it was
"Uncle Sandy's" keen powers of
observation, retentive mind- and
minute familiarity with all the tra-
ditions of the countryside which
seem most to have aroused his inter-
est in nature and shaped the bent
of his zeal. But both concerned
themselves deeply in his education
and planned for him — for the boy
had early showed more than usual
mental acumen — a distinguished
career in some one of the profes-
sions. So the little lad was entered
at the "Dames' school," across the
way from the thatched home, where
two maiden sisters dealt out the
mysteries of a written and printed
language. Miller tells how useless
and perfunctory it all seemed to him,
this learning how to spell words
and range them in sentences, until

one day, of a sudden, he made the
tremendous discovery that there
were stories under these words, the
story of Benjamin and Samuel, of
David and of Daniel, that, as he
says, "the art of reading was the art
of finding stories in books." A new
world had opened, and now his
whetted appetite could not be sated
on scripture tales alone. There
followed those immortal tales,
"Jack the Giant-killer," "Bluebeard,"
"Sinclbad the Sailor," (and right here
in telling this story the distin-
guished author breaks out vigor-
ously : "Those intolerable nuisances,
the useful knowledge books, had not
yet arisen, like tenebrious stars, on
the educational horizon to darken
the world and shed their blighting
influence on the opening intellect
of the youthhood") and soon after
Pope's translation of the "Odyssey"
and "Iliad," and "Pilgrim's Progress" ;
thenceforward everything that the
little town could be made to pro-
duce. Presently he was entered at
the parish school, which, fronting
on the shore near the east base of
the sand spit, commands the whole
length of the firth to the Sutors, and.
from the windows of this school

The Parish School, 1815

The Sutors

every sailing craft which in line of
business or in stress of weather en-
tered the firth was seen and regis-
tered by. the boys. There probably
never was a school where the
scholars knew and could draw so
well upon their slates the lines and
rigging of every variety of schooner,
carvel and smack.

But the boy was learning more
outside than within school. His
teachers were not sympathetic and
he himself was becoming wayward.
The hills invited him and days
which were due to the school were
spent, usually with some of his com-
panions of whom he was the ac-
knowledged leader in all kinds of
mischief, in the sea-caves along the
rocky shore of the southern Sutor
or among the woods and glens of
Cromarty hill. His school career

of Cromarty

terminated violently. Commanded
to spell the word awful he spelt
with the broad pronunciation to
which he was used, aw-w-f-u-I.
"No," said the master, "a-w, aw,
f-u-1, awful. Spell it again." Th'is
seemed to him preposterous, to put
another aw in the middle of the
word and he refused. The hand to
hand encounter which followed was
a fierce and bloody one and both
master and pupil retired from the
conflict sadly battered, Miller, how-
ever, never to return.

Casting about now for a life's
work he decided, greatly against the
wishes of his uncles, to apprentice
himself to a stone mason.

At that day a mason had to
quarry as well as hew and lay his
stone, and the work was arduous and
severe but, the day's work done,

555

556

HUGH MILLER AND HIS CENTENARY

there were the long northern even-
ings free for other devices. So this
future geologist and man of letters
bound himself for three years to a
master mason to quarry and hew
stone during the day, while his long
evenings were devoted to the most
careful study of the best masters of
English prose and poetry. He
served his time and became skilful
at his trade, but he likewise became
accomplished at his diversion, and
though Scotsmen easily break out
into verse and he set up no claim
to fine poetic diction, yet subse-
quently he published a volume of
verse produced during this period,
"Poems Written in the Leisure
Hours of a Journeyman Mason,"
his first book and only attempt in
this line.

It was during this period, how-
ever, that his eyes were beginning
to see into the secrets of the rocks.
As the stone quarries where he
wrought and the stone he hewed
were for the most part of the Old
Red Sandstone formation, he saw
how similar it was in its structure
to the sands of the beach where he
had roamed so often with Uncle Sandy
and his boy friends. It is a rather
curious coincidence that the Old
Red Sandstone which fringes the
Cromarty hill was actually de-
posited in an ancient lagoon or em-
bayment not vastly unlike the
present Cromarty firth, and it was
by this, his only means of compari-
son, that the young geologist was
enabled to interpret the rock beds.
He had seen on the Cromarty
beaches that some of the sand de-
posits had been blown about by the
wind and in these the grains looked

unlike those which had simply been
washed over by the water, and he
searched for similar differences in
the sand grains of the Old Red. He
saw the rippled surfaces, the marks
left by rills and wave borne pebbles,
and these simple observations grad-
ually led him into a world of new
interest and endeavor. The little
hints he caught he must interpret
for himself. There were for him but
few side lights and no books which
served to solve his problems for
him. His finer discoveries of the
fossils in the rocks, the vast shoals
of bizarre fishes, seem not to have
been made during this time of his
apprenticeship.

When he had served his period he
betook himself to Edinburgh where
he wrought at his trade in the neigh-
borhood as long as his health per-
mitted, but his lungs had begun to
fill up with rock dust and he was
compelled, on the verge of consump-
tion, to abandon his work. Then
followed a period of rest and slow
convalescence spent about the be-
loved hills of Cromarty, and that
was the time most fertile in addi-
tions to his own and the world's
knowledge of the geology of his
home country.

Miller was superior in all his un-
dertakings and as a stone mason he
wrought better, more artistically
and intelligently than his fellows.
On the Conon River, up back of
Dingwall, is still standing a farm
wall of his handiwork even yet
pointed out as a model of such
coarse construction ; the parish
churchyard and the burying ground
of old St. Regulus at Cromarty hold
examples of his mortuary sculpture,

HUGH MILLER AND HIS CENTENARY

557

done when, as an itinerant sculptor
he "wandered from one country
burying ground to another, record-
ing on his tablets of stone the tears
of the living and the worth of the
dead," and they are notable for the
chastity of their style in contrast to
the usual horrid and grewsome dec-
oration of contemporary designers.
The pediment of a dial still stand-
ing in one of the Cromarty gardens
is a fine example of his achievement
which shows not only his manual
facility but the elevation of his
standard of taste.

It would have been fortunate for
geological science and well for Mil-
ler had some happy turn of the
wheel made it possible for him to
continue his study of the rocks
without interruption, but it was not
thus ordered and at no period in his
life was he at liberty to pursue his
chosen science save in the intervals
of pressing necessary work. His
achievements therefore as a geolo-
gist must be looked upon as little
short of marvellous. One must
pause a moment here to consider the
conditions which surrounded him.

Geology in the period from 1830-
1845, when his first results were
achieved, was a little known science
outside of a few centres of learning.
It was, however, a very widely mis-
understood and misinterpreted sci-
ence; in a country so given over to
controversial theology as Scotland,
it was especially regarded as
fraught with danger to the stand-
ards of the Church. One could not
enter this field save at some cost
to his standing in a conservative
community. The Old Red Sand-
stone had been heard of before, but it

Sundial Pediment by Miller

had been regarded an unimportant
local formation without evidences of
ancient life. As his problems devel-
oped, the few books that could give
this seeker any light seem not to
have come his way. Miller had, in-
deed, to build up his own science
from his own observations, and how
well he did this is shown in many
ways. Not alone are his conclusions
as to the origin of the Old Red
Sandstone vital facts to-day, but his
keen insight foresaw and suggested
peculiar features of its origin which
in these latest years have started

Cromarty from the West

special trains of important investiga-
tion. He found that the rocks were
filled with myriads of strange crea-
tures which he believed and demon-
strated to be fishes, though nothing
like some of them had ever before
been seen and he had naught with
which to compare them except the
fishes he knew in the waters of
Cromarty. Yet such were his syn-
thetic powers that he was able to
reconstruct them with an accuracy
that seems to-day, in the light of
fuller knowledge, astonishing. Hux-
ley, who long afterward brought to
bear upon these Old Red fishes his
brilliant and finely trained powers,
remarked : "The more I study the
fishes of the Old Red the more I am
struck with the patience and sagaci-
ty manifested in Hugh Miller's re-
searches and by the natural insight
which in his case seems to have sup-
plied the place of special anatomical
knowledge."
558

The young stone mason, however,
unable because of impaired health
to continue the laborious toil of his
business and not successful in ob-
taining enough mortuary sculpture
to meet the demands of living, was
now turned into another line of ac-
tivity. In 1834 a branch of the
Commercial Bank of Scotland was
established in Cromarty and to him
was offered the position of account-
ant therein ; so after a preliminary
training at Linlithgow he entered
upon the career of a bank clerk.

Just at the close of his period of
enforced leisure, Miller had com-
pleted the manuscript of his delight-
ful "Scenes and Legends of the
North of Scotland," his first prose
work, which has now run through
fourteen editions. No more enjoya-
ble reading could come into the
hands of young or old. Miller's
mother was a Highlander and
from her he seems to have imbibed

K Wi

^\yfj%

r *?'. 1

'•4'- ■ 1

Hr V

11 7

IF '\^

■\ ■ .

t- .w flH

The Hugh Miller Monument

the Highland fondness for, and in
some measure the awe of, the myste-
rious in nature. The ancient super-
stitions of Cromarty are laughed at,
but not too heartily; tales of times
which had no historian are told with
interest, pathos and humor, and all
are set forth in pure and forcible
English. The pen of the young
author had at last found its function
in masterly prose.

For five years Miller served as
bank clerk in his native town. They
were years not of conspicuous mark
in his career but of quiet assimila-
tion and especially of keen furtherance

of his geological studies. But his
fertile mind toward the end of this
time had become afire with interest
in the ecclesiastical condition of the
country. It is bootless for us to
exclaim, as has been often done in
this latter day, how much more
would have been accomplished for
science if Miller had kept free of
entanglement in a theological con-
troversy. To the writer, at least, it
is not altogether clear that he could
have rendered a greater service to
science than by the very means
which circumstances threw in his
way. His church was in peril and

559

560

HUGH MILLER AND HIS CENTENARY

it was his conviction, as he has said,
that the country possessed "no
other institution half so valuable as
the church or in which the people
had so large a stake." Disruption
in the established church of Scot-
land was impending-. Growth of
democratic ideas in church govern-
ment had developed increasing hos-
tility to the intrusion of ministers
upon livings,, contrary to the wishes
of the parish communions. Where
the church is an establishment,
church polity is state politics. The
Cromarty bank clerk began the new
episode in his career with a virile
and cogent pamphlet on the burning
question of intrusion addressed to
Lord Brougham and opposing the
position of the establishment, which
attracted attention throughout the
land. He became at once a marked
man, and though he had even
claimed to be thoroughly an "estab-
lishment man," he was immediately
invited by the organized opposition
party to take the editorship of their
newspaper, the Edinburgh Witness.
In 1839 his editorial work began, in
1843 occurred the Disruption and
the establishment of the Free
Church, in which movement he was
unquestionably the largest lay fac-
tor. The Witness, under his editor-
ship, became a mighty influence
throughout Scotland ; to it he gave
the best years of his endeavor until his
calamitous death in 1856. It was
far from being simply an ecclesias-
tical organ, championing at every
cost the interest of the Free Church ;
its columns teemed with pregnant
editorials on all matters of public
moment, of social and educational
interest, and of his paper he mod-

estly says that none other in Scot-
land had so wide a circulation
among the men who had received a
university education. In it he pub-
lished what, when subsequently
gathered together, made his best
and most widely known books,
"Schools and Schoolmasters," "Old
Red Sandstone," "Footprints of the
Creator," "Cruise of the Betsey"
and "Rambles of a Geologist," and
through this paper and these books
his name became known and hon-
ored, not alone in Scotland, but
among all English-speaking people.
"What we more especially owe to
Miller," says Sir Archibald Geikie,
speaking for the geologists, "is the
awakening of a widespread interest
in the methods and results of scien-
tific inquiry. More than any other
author of his day he taught men to
recognize that beneath the techni-
calities and jargon that are too apt
to conceal the meaning of the facts
and inferences which they express,
there lie the most vital truths in
regard to the world in which we
live. He clothed the dry bones of
science with living flesh and blood.
He made the aspects of past ages to
stand out once more before us, as
his vivid imagination conceived that
they must once have been. He
awakened an enthusiasm for geo-
logical questions such as had never
before existed, and this wave of
popular appreciation which he set in
motion has never ceased to pulsate
throughout the English-speaking
population of the world. His ge-
nial ardor and irresistible eloquence
swept away the last remnants of the
barrier of orthodox prejudice against
geology in this country. The pres-

561

562

HUGH MILLER AND HIS CENTENARY

ent generation can hardly realize the
former strength of that bigotry or
appreciate the merit of the service
rendered in the breaking of it down.
The well-known satirical criticism
of the poet Cowper* expressed a
prevalent feeling among the ortho-
dox of his day, and this feeling was
still far from extinct when Miller
began to write. No one, however,
could doubt his absolute orthodoxy,
and when the cause of the science
was espoused by him, the voices of
the objectors were finally silenced.
There was another class of cavaliers
who looked on geology as a mere
collecting of minerals, a kind of la-
borious trifling concealed under a
cover of uncouth technical terms.
Their view was well expressed by
Wordsworth when he singled out
for contemptuous scorn the enthu-
siast—

'Who with pocket hammer smites the edge
Of luckless rock or prominent stone,

Detaching- by the stroke
A chip or splinter, to resolve his doubts,
And with that ready answer satisfied,
The substance classes by some barbarous

name
And hurries on: He thinks himself en-
riched,
Wealthier and doubtless wiser than be-
fore.'

"But a champion had now arisen
who, as far as might be, discarding
technicalities, made even the dullest
reader feel that the geologist is the
historian of the earth, that he 'deals
with a series of chronicles as real
and as decipherable as those that
record human events and that they

* This is in the "Task," and runs thus :

"Some drill and bore
The solid earth and from the strata there
Extract a register, by which we learn
That He who made it and revealed its date
To Moses was mistaken in its age."

can be made not only intelligible,
but attractive as the subjects of sim-
ple and elegant prose.''

Without education, except in the
schools of which he had so charm-
ingly written, Miller had risen to a
position of the widest influence
throughout Scotland, but notwith-
standing this distinction he ever
maintained the reticence and mod-
esty of the country lad. He de-
clined to stand for election as Lord
Rector of Marischal College at
Aberdeen and for the vacant pro-
fessorship of Natural History in
Edinburgh University, but he was
satisfied to feel that, as he expressed
it, "after a hard spent day he had
not been an altogether unprofitable
servant."

Sixteen years of arduous and
amazingly productive toil as editor
of the Witness told upon his health.
He had suffered much from head-
aches, his nerves had become frayed
with persistent overtaxing. Edin-
burgh streets in 1856 were filled
with desperadoes and highwaymen,
and he grew fearsome lest an inroad
should be made upon his precious
geological collections. He had got
in the way of going about armed,
had become somnambulistic, and
one black night, toiling and over-
strained till almost dawn with the
proof sheets of his "Testimony of
the Rocks," the mind broke down,
and in the darkness his life abruptly
ended.

On August 22, 1902 (the exigen-
cies of Scottish weather justified the
change in date) a great throng en-
tered Cromarty from all Britain,
with representatives from Canada,

HUGH MILLER AND HIS CENTENARY

563

the United States and Italy. The
sun shone bright and warm -upon
the flag-decked buildings, the Amer-
ican colors being here and there in-
tertwined with the multifold British
flags and Scotia's yellow. The oc-
casion was well supported ; back of
it appeared such names as Lords
Balfour, Kelvin, Lister, Sir Archi-
bald Geikie, Sir Norman Lockyer,
Right Hon. James Bryce, Professors
Masson, Bonney, Lapworth, Joly,
Sollas.

On the hilltop just west of the
town stands a fine shaft surmounted
by a statue of Miller, and the pedi-
ment graced by sculptured bay
leaves and "Pterichthys." At the
foot of this shaft gathered a mighty
throng of 2,000 people, who had
come to do homage to the man, and
here addresses were delivered by
the provost of the town, Mr. Junor ;
by the member of Parliament, Mr.
Bignold, representing local interest
and pride ; by Rev. Dr. Rainy, prin-
cipal of the Free Church College,
Edinburgh, on behalf of the church
for which this life had done so pro-
found a service, and by Sir Archi-
bald Geikie and the delegate from
the Geological Society of America,
speaking for the science which he
loved and to which he had given
much. The public halls of the little
town could not accommodate all
who wished to sit down to the

luncheon that followed, but the 250
who succeeded in gaining access to
this function were regaled with a
flow of distinguished eloquence and
rare tributes from Sir Thomas Han-
bury, Dr. John Home of the Geo-
logical Survey erf Scotland, Dr.
Macadam Muir of the Glasgow
Cathedral, Dr. Andrew Carnegie,
Professor Middleton of Oxford, Sir
James Grant, president of the Royal
Society of Canada, and others.
Thereafter in the Free Church (most
appropriate spot !) Sir Archibald
Geikie paid the tribute of all geol-
ogists to Miller's memory in a de-
lightful and elegant address. It was
an additional pleasure to all present
at these ceremonies to be able to
meet the only surviving child of
Hugh Miller, Mrs. Miller Mackav
of Lochinver.

A committee of the townspeople,
represented by the provost, Mr.
Junor, and Mr. John Bain as secre-
tary, had brought about this cele-
bration, partly in the hope that with
the tributes laid on Miller's shrine
might come to the town of his birth
a more substantial memorial to his
services — a public library and a mu-
seum of his scientific remains. The
success of this project, through the
devotion of Miller's admirers, the as-
siduity of his townsfolk and the
munificence of Dr. Carnegie is as-
sured.

564

The Underground Railroad

By Wilbur H. Siebert

WHEN the complete his-
tory of the antislavery
movement in America
shall have been written
there will be found in it no chapter
so full of strange and romantic inci-
dents, of brave and generous deeds,
of moral earnestness in the cause of
freedom, and of love of liberty for
its own sake as that recounting the
work of the underground railroad.
This chapter will be an important
one, too, if it does justice to an insti-
tution that was already existing in
Washington's day, and that seems
to have had a continuous develop-
ment from that time until its secret
lines extended through fourteen
northern states, and helped not
merely thousands but tens of thou-
sands of slaves from bondage in the
South to liberty in the free states
and Canada. It is the purpose of
this paper to indicate the conditions
under which the road came into
existence, what work it accom-
plished, how it operated and what
its political significance was.

The originators and promoters of
the underground railroad were per-
sons uncompromising in their alle-
giance to the doctrine of human
rights as set forth in the Declaration
of Independence. The dictates of
their consciences they set ab'ove the
prohibitions of external law. Up-
right, liberty-loving, fearless, they

refused, in the face of all kinds of
abuse, to countenance slavery by
word or deed, and at the risk of
liberty and property they joined in
cooperative efforts to afford the
wretched fugitive transportation to
a place where he might be free.
Lines of escape from the southern
states to the shores of the Great
Lakes early developed, and through
two generations they multiplied un-
til the states adjacent to Lake Erie
became netted over with a tangle
of interlacing routes, while even the
states that formed the outlying por-
tions of the zone of free soil — Iowa
on the west, and Pennsylvania, New
York, New Jersey and the New
England states on the east — were
traversed by some important lines.

Even in colonial times, long be-
fore the disappearance of slavery
from the North, bondsmen were es-
caping from one colony into another
either to save themselves from cruel
treatment or to gain that liberty for
which they were ever thirsting.
The gradual establishment of a sec-
tional line between the North and
the South served to furnish condi-
tions far more favorable to the es-
cape of slaves than had existed in
the earlier days when all of the
colonies regarded the question of
the recovery of fugitives in the light
of self-interest. The question of ex-
tradition of runaway slaves was at

565

Map of the Underground Railroad in New England

issue in the conventions that framed
the Constitution and the Northwest
Ordinance ; and in both instruments
occur clauses providing- for the re-
turn of fugitives from labor. In
order that these might be given
point and application the first fugi-
tive slave law was enacted in 1793.
566

The penalty for harboring a slave or
interfering with his arrest, according
to this law, was a fine of five hun-
dred dollars; but the manifest injus-
tice of a measure that permitted the
claimant of a negro to seize the al-
leged fugitive and, by simple affi-
davit before the proper official, con-

House of Elizabeth Buffum Chace
A Station of the Underground Railroad, Valley Falls, R. I.

demn him to lifelong servitude, was
sufficient to defeat the law from the
outset. Its frequent violation led to
agitation on the floor of Congress in
1796, and again in 1801, looking
toward the amendment of the law in
the direction of increased efficiency;
and later, during the period from
1817 to 1822, further propositions in
the interests of southern slavehold-
ers were urged. Nothing was ef-
fected, however, and the matter
seems not to have come up again
until 1848. How great a loss was
sustained by the South during the
half century and more the law of
1793 was in force will never be ac-
curately known. The biographer of
General John A. Quitman, one time
governor of the state of Mississippi,
commenting on the law, declared
that it was defective in that it failed
to make provision "for the restitu-
tion to the South of the $30,000,000
of which she had been plundered

through the 100,000 slaves abducted
from her in the course of the last
forty years" — that is from 1810 to
1850; and the same writer attributed
the rapid disappearance of slavery
from the District of Columbia after
1840 to the clandestine work of the
abolitionists, stating that the num-
ber of slaves in the District had been
reduced since 1840 from 4,694 to 650,
by underground railroads and fe-
lonious abductions.

These figures can scarcely be cor-
rect, but it is nevertheless certain
that the injury sustained by south-
ern slave owners through the opera-
tions of the underground railroad
was large, and that they consequent-
ly came to feel that nothing but the
most stringent fugitive slave bill
would suffice to protect them. A
new law embodying the demands of
the South was therefore framed in
1850. If its provisions proved to be
satisfactory at the outset to the

. 567

568

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

Gen. Samuel Fessenden, Who Entertained

Fugitives at His House on India

Street, Portland, Me.

slave states, they were most galling
to the free states, and evoked an
antagonism that greatly increased
the activity of the underground rail-
road.

The penalty for sheltering a slave
or aiding in a rescue was now made
one thousand dollars and imprison-
ment for not more than six months.
In case the slave escaped, his helper
could be sued to the extent of a
thousand dollars. The provisions,
however, that were especially ag-
gravating to the minds of northern
men were those denying the slave
the right to testify in his own be-
half, granting the sheriff or United
States marshal the power to compel
the bystander to help execute the
law, and giving the commissioner a
fee of only five dollars when he de-
cided against the claimant, but ten
dollars when his decision was in

favor of the claimant. Abolition-
ists and others never before willing
to be classed with such "disreputa-
ble fanatics" denounced the law and
defied it, asserting that they would
never submit to be set at the misera-
ble business of slave-catching. They
justified their attitude by quoting
the scriptural injunction: "Thou
shalt not deliver unto his master the
servant which is escaped from his
master unto thee" — an admonition
aptly denominated by ex-President
Fairchild of Oberlin College, "the
fugitive slave law of the Mosaic in-
stitutions."

There were friends of the slave in
the South as well as in the North
who felt that

''Before man made them citizens, great
Nature made them men,"

and that as men they could not re-

Hon. Joseph Poland, an Antislavery
Editor, Whose Office in Montpelier,
Vt., Was a Regular Station

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

569

sist the appeals made to them in be-
half of oppressed humanity. From
the vantage ground of Canada
former slaves have since declared
that they had been helped to escape
by planters who were unwilling to
see them suffer at the hands of cruel
masters. Robert Purvis reports the
case of the son of a slaveholder of
Newberne, North Carolina, who fre-
quently sent slaves to the vigilance
committee at Philadelphia, by plac-
ing them on vessels engaged in the
lumber trade. Nor did the running
slave often lack the sympathy of
fellow-bondsmen. Thus it came
about that there were many feeders
in the southern states for the chan-
nels of escape that led across the
northern states to Canada.

Lewis Hayden, a Fugitive Settler in

Massachusetts, Abducted from

Slavery by Calvin Fairbank

The Late Lewis G. Clark of Boston,
the Original George Harris of
"Uncle Tom's Cabin"

How this informal but vast sys-
tem— extending over more than one-
quarter of the present area of the
Union — came to be called the un-
derground railroad can not now be
accurately ascertained. According
to the tradition that appears most
trustworthy, the name came from
an incident that occurred in 1831. A
Kentucky master closely pursued
his escaping slave, Tice Davids,
across the Ohio River to Ripley,
Ohio, where he suddenly lost sight
of him. With a mystified air he
declared, "That nigger must have
gone off on an underground road."
The aptness of the designation
gained for it general currency.
Steam railroads were beginning to
be known in the United States at
this time, and their terminology was
quickly appropriated. Houses where

570

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

Ellen Craft. Disguised as a Planter
She Escaped to Boston in 1848,
Bringing Her Husband as Valet.
Portrait Loaned by Simeon Dodge of
Marblehead, Who Harbored Her and
Helped Her to Get Away to England

fugitives were regularly given
refuge were called "stations," their
owners "station keepers," those that
drove the wagons in which the ne-
groes were conveyed from one place
of concealment to the next, or led
the way on foot were appropriately
called "conductors" or "trainmen"
and the little caravans they led were
the "trains," while the travellers
were described as "passengers,"
sometimes less considerately as
"baggage."

All this heightened the mystery
with which the work of running off
fugitives was conducted, and indeed
the whole method of the service was
determined by the need of secrecy.
Not only was the safety of the runa-
ways of the first importance, but the

danger to those who were braving
the law by their midnight labors
aroused no little concern. The pur-
suit of slaves by parties of slave-
catchers became common during the
decades from 1840 to i860 and was
by no means unknown before ; the
abolitionists became more and more
subject to surveillance and assault.
In view of these facts it is not sur-
prising that numerous artifices were
employed by agents of the road, that
the fugitives were conducted or
transported from station to station
generally in the nighttime, that they
were kept in hiding during the day,
or so disguised as to be unrecogniza-
ble. In spite of the great risks they
ran, it is the pride of these abolition-
ists to declare that they rarely lost
a passenger. Each man operated in
a field more or less limited, he al-
ways knew those of his neighbors
to whom he dared confide, his
charges, but not always those that
forwarded them to him, for in gen-
eral he declined to ask of the fugi-
tive whence he came, preferring to
be ignorant of as much damaging
information as possible. In case of
hot pursuit he would leave the usual
route and cut across to neighboring
stations on other lines. Thus arose
the tangle of routes connecting sta-
tions, five, ten, twenty, and some-
times even fifty miles apart, all
trending in the general direction of
Canada, deviating far eastward of
the North Star in the routes of Iowa,
Illinois and Indiana, and westward
in the eastern states. Across Ohio
the fugitives found their shortest cut
to freedom, scoring the state over
with well beaten tracks.

It is doubtful if a formal organi-

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

571

zation of these lines would have
united them for more effective ser-
vice. Many local organizations were
arranged, it is true; 'but the leaders
of that day had no conception of the
vastness of the enterprise in which
they were interested. Levi Coffin,
for thirty years reputed president of
the road, was perhaps more widely
known than any other man in the
service; his house at Fountain City,
Indiana, was a central station for
three lines from the Ohio River.

Peter Stewart, of Wilmington,
Illinois, was also well known for his
hospitality to the fugitive, and by
his co-workers was called the presi-
dent of the road. A limited organi-
zation was effected in Philadelphia
in 1838 and Robert Purvis was there
chosen president. An instance of
the deliberate organization of a
single route is that which was ac-
complished through the efforts of
John Cross, a Congregational minis-
ter and abolitionist, who travelled
through northwestern Indiana and
Michigan giving anti-slavery lec-
tures. Soon afterwards those whom
he discovered trustworthy received
a printed letter stating that a line
had been formed through their
neighborhood and asking them to
be "ready to receive visitors at any
hour of the night." Mr. W. B. Wil-
liams, of La Porte, Indiana, who re-
ceived one of these messages, says,
"We were further informed who
kept the next station east of us and
where they lived. It did not con-
cern us to know anything more
either to the east or west." The
line was a prosperous one,' for Dr.
Thomas, who lived in Kalamazoo
County, Michigan, and had received

the same word from John Cross,
says that in the twenty years from
1842 to 1862 between one thousand
and fifteen hundred fugitives passed
through his hands. After the fugi-
tive slave law of 1850 organization
was more common. In the large
cities like Detroit, New York, Syra-
cuse, Philadelphia, Boston and
Springfield, and in a number of
smaller places there sprang up in
protest against the measure "vigil-
ance committees" to guard the
liberty of the black man. John
Brown, while visiting his old home
in Springfield, Mass., after the pas-
sage of the slave law of 1850, or-
ganized a band of forty-four col-
ored persons and admonished them
to "stand by one another while
a drop of blood remains; and
be hanged, if you must, but tell no
tales out of school." It is not too
much to say, however, on the basis
of a great mass of testimony con-
cerning the operations of the under-
ground railroad both before and
after 1850, that the road was a
thing of spontaneous origin and
natural growth, striking root, like
some gigantic vine, wherever the
soil of abolitionism was most nour-
ishing.

As the exigencies of the case de-
cided what particular route was to
be taken, so the ingenuity of the
wary operators was often put to the
test to furnish safe places of hiding
for delayed passengers. Garrets,
cellars, secret chambers constructed
for the purpose, potato holes under
loose boards in the floor, barn lofts,
hollow hay-ricks with blind en-
trances, hazel thickets, corn shocks,
churches, caves, and in one instance

572

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

the antechamber of a masonic lodge,
served as places of temporary con-
cealment. When occasion required
a station keeper would be notified
in advance by special messenger of
the approach of a company or he
might receive a note adroitly
worded. A few such cabalistic mes-
sages are extant. The following
lines were addressed by Colonel
John Stone, an operator of Wash-
ington County, Ohio, to a well-
known station agent at Point Har-
mar :

"Belpre, Friday morning.
David Putnam :

Business is arranged for Saturday
night, be on the lookout and if
practicable let a carriage come to
meet the caravan. J. S."

The Hon. Thomas Mitchell, of
Mitchellville, near Des Moines, for-
warded fugitives to Mr. J. B. Grin-
nell, of Grinnell, Iowa. The latter
gives the following note as a sample
of the messages that passed between
them:

"Dear Grinnell: Uncle Tom
says if the roads are not too bad
you can look for those fleeces of
wool by to-morrow. Send them on
to test the market and price, no
back charges.

"Yours, Hub."

Thomas Garrett's usual message
was, "I send thee two, three or more
bags of black wool." From Low
Moor, Iowa, May 6, 1859, came the
following message :

"Dear Sir: By to-morrow even-
ing's mail you will receive two
volumes of the 'Irrepressible Con-

flict' bound in black. After perusal
please forward and oblige,

"Yours truly, G. W. W."

By the peculiar wording of these
messages it was intended that the
receiver should get a notion of the
number of fugitives coming and
also their age, sex and complexion.

But in the great number of cases
fugitives came unannounced. When
far from the slave states they
sometimes travelled by day follow-
ing the directions given them to find
the next stopping place. Dr. James
H. Canfield, librarian of Columbia
University, says that as a boy in
the Battenkill Valley, Vermont, he
noticed on certain houses that the
fourth or fifth row of bricks from
the top of the chimney was painted
white, and was told that this was
one of the secret signs of an under-
ground railroad station. Every one
could interpret the signboard that
stood at the crossroads ten miles
out from Oberlin, Ohio, on which
was painted the life-size figure of a
runaway speeding northward. From
the upper windows of the house of
the Rev. John Rankin, which stood
on a bluff overlooking the Ohio
River, the midnight lamps of some
theological students frequently shone
as a beacon to fugitives hesi-
tating on the Kentucky shore. In-
deed, each locality had its own
peculiar landmarks, and every con-
ductor his own sign and signal an-
nouncing his approach with a band
of fugitives.

Disguises played an important
part in many cases of rescue. Paint,
powder, wigs and veils, and the
generous eclipse produced by the

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

573

ample Quaker bonnet of that time,
were ready devices. Mr. W. X S.
Manly, of Logansport, Indiana, who
kept a station on the old Michigan
road, tells an interesting story of
a successful ruse accomplished in
1848. He had been hiding a fugitive
for several days, his place was being
closely watched, and it was neces-
sary to get the man away. Word
was sent to the Powell family living
ten miles farther north. In response
Mrs. Powell came down in an open
farm wagon. When the return trip
was made the figure that occupied
the stiff straight-backed hickory
chair in the springless wagon was
apparently Mrs. Powell and passed
the watchful slave-catcher without
a challenge.

Similar stories are told in almost
every community where under-
ground centres were maintained.
The humor of the situation was not
lost on those active in befriending
the slave, and they were often wit-
nesses of scenes rich in dramatic in-
terest. In 1858 a mulatto girl about
twenty years old, comely in appear-
ance and possessed of some educa-
tion, reached the home of the father
of Mr. Sidney Speed, of Crawfords-
ville, Indiana. Mr. Speed tells the
story of her rescue.

She was secreted in the garret
over the old log kitchen, where fugi-
tives were usually kept when there
was danger. There she had to re-
main several days owing to the
presence of her pursuers in the
neighborhood. Suspicion finally
rested on Mr. Speed, and he began
to receive visits from strange men,
who came to inquire the price of
live stock and remained to catch a

glimpse, if possible, of the escaped
slave. The girl's place of hiding was
seen to be no longer safe, so one
dark night she was hurried across
lots to a colored family by the name
of Patterson, and here she was ar-
rayed "in as fine a costume of silk
and ribbons as it was possible to
procure at that time ;" she was then
furnished with a white baby bor-
rowed for the occasion, and thus
disguised as a lady, and accompanied
by one of the Patterson girls as
servant and nurse, she boarded the
train at the station. Great was the
shock she felt when she found her-
self in the same car with her master,
who having failed to discover her
in the neighborhood, was setting out
now to watch for her at the end of
the line. Her courage and her lady-
like composure did not desert her
however, and Detroit was reached
in safety. Here she boarded the
ferry-boat for Canada. As the boat
was about to start she sent ashore
her pretended maid with the bor-
rowed baby, and just as the gang-
plank was being raised, lifted her
veil that she might bid her owner
good by. The master's display of
anger as he gazed at his departing
slave was as real as the situation
was gratifying to her, and amusing
to the bystanders.

Notwithstanding the fact that
abolitionists were constantly taking
great hazards in violating the law
and defying public opinion, the ap-
proval of conscience in obeying
what they held to be the higher law,
and the gratitude of those assisted
made full compensation for all toil
and danger. For many years Mr.
W. D. Schooley was engaged in un-

574

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

derground operations at Spiceland,
Indiana, a few miles from Newport,
the point of convergence of three
"trunk lines" from the South. On
one occasion he was a guide for a
colored man, whom he conducted
from the union station at Newport
to the house of the Quaker, Levi
Coffin. The negro had been com-
pelled to flee suddenly from a brutal
master, and had left his wife in the
South, but declared that he would
return for her after he had learned
something about Canada. Two
years later Mr. Schooley was mak-
ing another trip over the same route
with several refugees, one of whom
was a woman. On arriving at Mr.
Coffin's house the fugitives were
conducted to an upper room, which
could only be entered by means of
a ladder and trap-door, and in which
other fugitives were hidden at the
time. Scarcely had the newcomers
disappeared into the secret chamber,
when the Coffin household was
aroused by a sudden outburst of
"crying, screaming and shouting."
Conductor Schooley at once
mounted the ladder and discovered
the woman and a man locked in
each other's arms. No sooner did
they catch sight of Mr. Schooley
than he was seized and hugged be-
tween them, and overwhelmed with
caresses and explanations : the man
was on his way South to steal his
wife out of slavery and had unex-
pectedly met her here. With irre-
pressible joy he cried out, "This is
the man that helped me to liberty,"
and the woman with equal enthusi-
asm cried, "Lord bress you, honey,
dis am de berry man what brung
me here dis day !" Such reunions

are not uncommon in the history
of the underground railroad, and
are exemplified by the meeting of
George and Eliza under the roof of
Simeon Halliday in "Uncle Tom's
Cabin."

It was not an unusual thing for
underground workers to meet with
a slave hastening back on his track
after having tasted freedom. It is
estimated that not less than five
hundred Canadian refugees invaded
the southern states every year to
lead out of bondage their less for-
tunate brethren. There were two
noted fugitives who counted the
number of their rescues by hun-
dreds. Josiah Henson, the founder
of Dawn Institute in Canada West,
succeeded in abducting more than
two hundred of his fellows from the
South, and Harriet Tubman* —
called by her people Moses — res-
cued more than three hundred.

Most white persons that engaged
in the underground service were op-
posed to either enticing or abduct-
ing slaves from the southern
states. There were, however, a few
so zealous in their efforts in behalf
of the slaves that they carried on
their dangerous enterprises south of
Mason and Dixon's line. Some of
these persons were caught aiding
slaves and were made to suffer
severe penalties for their interfer-
ence with the planter's right of
ownership. The Rev. Calvin Fair-
bank and the Rev. Charles T.
Torrey, Daniel Drayton and Jona-
than Walker, both boat captains,
and Gen. William L. Chaplin were
among those whose suffering in

See New England Magazine for March, i8g6.

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

575

southern prisons have given them
a place in the list of antislavery
martyrs. Mr. Fairbank was instru-
mental in aiding forty-three persons
to escape, while the record of Mr.
Torrey included about ten times
this number. Among the white
abductors that were never proved
guilty of "slave-stealing" was the
distinguished naturalist, the late
Dr. Alexander M. Ross, of Toronto,
Canada, who made a number of
excursions into the southern states
between 1856 and 1862, for the pur-
pose of inciting slaves to flee to
Canada by way of underground
stations in Pennsylvania, Ohio and
Indiana.

The sweetness of liberty to the
fugitive slave was a thing scarcely
realized by those who befriended
him on his long and laborious jour-
ney northward. It was only those
who witnessed his entrance into the
"Promised Land" who really knew
what had been the longing for free-
dom of these simple-hearted people.
The experience of Captain Chap-
man, who lived at one time near
Randolph, Cattaraugus County, New
York, is to the point. He was the
commander of a vessel engaged in
the traffic between Buffalo and other
points on Lake Erie. Early one
morning in Cleveland harbor, as the
captain was starting on a voyage
to Buffalo, he noticed a small boat
put off from shore for his craft.
When the boat came alongside he
found her manned by two merchants
with whom he. was well acquainted.
These gentlemen had two negroes
in charge, and requested the' captain
to take them aboard his vessel and
land them in Canada. "I knew, of

course," said the captain, "that these
men were fugitive slaves, though
they were the first that I had ever
seen. I had heard it remarked that
it was only the smartest niggers that
ever got away, and thought I, if
these are the smartest, what stupid
animals the masses of the slaves
must be." The captain sought to
draw the negroes into conversation
and learn something from them in
regard to their adventures, but he
gained little from them that was
intelligible. That these creatures,
who seemed to him almost brutes,
should really feel or understand
the love of liberty, was an idea that
scarcely entered his mind. Before
entering Buffalo harbor Captain
Chapman ran his vessel in near the
Canada shore, manned a boat and
landed the negroes on the beach.
The rest of the story is best told in
his own words: "I then . . . told
them that they were free. They
said, 'Is this Canada?' I said, 'Yes,
there are no slaves in this country.'
Then I witnessed a scene I shall
never forget. They seemed to be
transformed, a new light shone in
their eyes, their tongues were
loosed, they laughed and cried,
prayed and sang praises, fell upon
the ground and kissed it over and
over, embraced a tree and kissed it,
and hugged and kissed each other,
crying, 'Bress de Lord ! Oh, Ise
free befo' I die !' ". The transports
of joy deeply affected the captain.
That two persons without home,
friends, or a single bright prospect
for the future, could go into ecstasies
over the mere thought of being free,
was to him a revelation. It is per-
haps not remarkable under the cir-

576

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

cumstances that thenceforth he
should have been a devoted under-
ground operator.

The section of Canada which the
majority of fugitives reached was
the great peninsular portion of On-
tario that appears to crowd itself
in like a huge wedge between the
eastern shore of Michigan and the
western shore of New York. From
Georgian Bay to Lake Erie this re-
gion was dotted over with settle-
ments and single dwellings of ref-
ugees. Especially was this true of
the southern trip extending from the
Detroit and Huron Rivers to the Ni-
agara River. Detroit, Buffalo, Black
Rock and Niagara Falls were favorite
crossing places ; from Toledo, San-
dusky, Erie and Dunkirk, thousands
of fugitives were taken directly across
Lake Erie and landed at convenient
points along the shore.

It is impossible to tell how many
refugees were sent from these and
other ports to become loyal and
self-respecting subjects of the
Queen. An estimate based on the
only reliable figures we have shows
that probably 40,000 slaves escaped
into Ohio alone, and it is safe to say
that at least half of these went on
to Canada. Some persons that
visited fugitive settlements in the
Dominion made estimates of the
total refugee population, but the
differences among their figures,
which range from 15,000 or 20,000
to 75,000, show that little value can
be attached to their guesses. Cer-
tain it is, however, that the South
lost millions of dollars' worth of
slaves through the operations of the
underground system.
This loss of valuable property by

mysterious channels, despite consti-
tutional guarantees and fugitive
slave bills, was a source of increas-
ing irritation between the two sec-
tions of the country through a long
period of years. Southern members
of Congress preferred public charges
of bad faith against the free states,
and in so doing voiced the universal
discontent of the South. These
charges were sometimes accom-
panied by estimates of the amount
of human property lost through the
failure of northern men to obey the
fugitive slave laws. In 1822, Moore,
of Virginia, advocated a new fugi-
tive recovery bill, asserting that his
district lost four or five thousand
dollars' worth of runaway slaves an-
nually. By 1850 complaints of this
sort had become more numerous,
and the estimates of losses much
larger. Thus, in August, 1850, At-
chison, of Missouri, informed the
Senate that "depredations to the
amount of hundreds of thousands
of dollars are committed upon the
people of the border slave states of
this Union annually." Pratt, of
Maryland, said that not less than
$80,000 worth of slaves was lost
every year by citizens of his state.
Mason, of Virginia, declared that
the losses of his state were already
too heavy to be borne, that they
were increasing from year to year,
and were then in excess of $100,000
per year. Butler, of South Carolina,
reckoned the annual loss of the
southern section at $200,000 ; and
Clingman, of North Carolina, said
that the thirty thousand fugitives
then reported to be living in the
North were worth at current prices
little less than $15,000,000.

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

577

In the crisis of 1860-61, the re-
cords of the violent debates then in
progress in Congress contain evi-
dence that the continued violation of
the fugitive slave law was regarded
as a most serious accusation by
those who made it. In April, i860,
Jones, of Georgia, said in the House :
"It is a notorious fact that in a
good many of the non-slaveholding
states the Republican party have
regularly organized societies — un-
derground railroads — for the avowed
purpose of stealing the slaves from
the border states, and carrying them
off to a free state or to Canada.
These predatory bands are kept up
by private and public subscriptions
among the abolitionists ; and in
many states, I am sorry to say,
they receive the sanction and pro-
tection of the law. The border
states lose annually thousands and
millions of dollars' worth of property
by this system of larceny that has
been carried on for years." Polk,
of Missouri, made the same com-
plaint in the Senate in January,
1861. "Underground railroads are
established," said he, "stretching
from the remotest s.laveholding
states clear up to Canada. Secret
agencies are put to work in the very
midst of our slaveholding communi-
ties to steal away slaves. The con-
stitutional obligation for the rendi-
tion of the fugitive from service is
violated. The laws of Congress
enacted to carry this provision of
the Constitution into effect are not
executed. Their execution is pre-
vented. Prevented, first, by hostile
and unconstitutional state legisla-
tion. Secondly, by a vitiated public
sentiment. Thirdly, by the conceal-

ing of the slave, so that the United
States law cannot be made to reach
him. And when the runaway is
arrested under the fugitive slave
law — which, however, is seldom the
case — he is very often rescued.
. . . This lawlessness is felt with
special seriousness in the bor-
der slave states. Hundreds of
thousands of dollars are lost an-
nually. And no state loses more
heavily than my own. . . . But
all these losses and outrages, all
this disregard of constitutional ob-
ligation and social duty, are as noth-
ing in their bearing upon the Union
in comparison with the animus, the
intent and purpose of which they are
at once the fruit and the evidence."
The noteworthy thing about this
long controversy in regard to fugi-
tive slaves is that, unlike the other
questions between the sections, it
was not subject to compromise. As
long as slavery remained in the
country, slave owners demanded the
restoration of their runaways, and
the demand was recognized, first,
by the insertion of clauses in the
Constitution and the Ordinance of
1787; and, secondly, by the enact-
ment of the fugitive slave laws of
1792 and 1850. But the responsi-
bility thus assumed by the general
government could not be met. The
operations of the underground rail-
road were beyond party control.
The number of escapes increased
.rapidly, and hundreds of northern
communities were stirred by the
affecting sights and stories which
the "U. G. R. R." brought to
their immediate notice. The free
states passed personal liberty laws
to protect the fugitive from

578

'SWEET MEMORY'S PALACE"

capture; vigilance committees were
organized by prominent men in
many of the larger cities for the
same purpose ; Harriet Beecher
Stowe, herself an underground op-
erator in Cincinnati, wrote "Uncle
Tom's Cabin" to portray to the
world the runaway's aspirations for
liberty; and John Brown proposed

to make use of underground meth-
ods in carrying out his Harper's
Ferry scheme of liberation. When,
therefore, the southern states un-
dertook to secede from the Union,
they had ample ground for declar-
ing one of their chief reasons to be
the bad faith of the North in refus-
ing to surrender fugitives.

Sweet Memory's Palace of
Renewed Delight"

By Mary Lord.

SWEET Memory's palace of renewed delight
Within my heart uplifts its slender spires.
Worn with vain strife, thither my soul retires
To count again its treasures, and the sight
Enjoy of precious gifts lost in time's flight.
Within its echoing halls my heart's desires
Are satisfied, — and long since smothered fires
Rouse from their ashes, warm me, and give light
To my dim eyes ; faces in dear youth known
Smile love on me, sweet music never more
To sound still lingers softly here alone,
And footsteps long years silent tread the floor.
Yet all within the palace is mine own,
And smiling, well content, I close the door.

A Winter Wooing

By Phoebe Willey Bensel

'VE jest be'n down stiller,
mother, an' my land ! that boy
don't more'n half do his
work — everything throwed
around in the most shif less way you
ever see! An', mother, you ain't
saved but two barrels of apples fur
the winter; an' you didn't make a
mite of cider apple sauce, either. You
don't cook anything scursely, livin'
alone as you do. I'm goin' to bake
some pies — you've got a little mince-
meat left — an' a cake before I go
home."

"Now, Almiry, there ain't no need
of your doin' any sech thing; I can
cook my own vittles, I guess, if I be
old," and a decidedly rebellious ex-
pression spread over Mrs. Pettingill's
face, as she pushed her steel-bowed
spectacles up over her forehead, and
looked severely at her energetic
daughter-in-law.

"Land sakes! I know you can
cook, mother," was the younger
woman's reply, as she came out of the
buttery, with the bread-board and
rolling-pin in her hands; depositing
these on the kitchen table, she bustled
back after the rest of the materials
for the purposed pie and cake making.
"Don't you s'pose I know you can
cook? My gracious! Dave thinks
nobody can hold a candle to you.
It's mother does this an' mother does
that, year in an' year out with him
But 'tain't safe for you to stay here

alone now it's oomin' cold weather —
you know yourself 'tain't. S'posin'
you was took sick ? What in the world
would you do? Dave says you've
got to shet up the house an' come
an' stay with us, an' if you git tired
of us you can go an' visit Mary Ann
an' Sarah, an' you could go over to
Sam's fur a spell ef you wanted too."

"I must say, Almiry, that you an'
Dave seem to be takin' consid'able
on your shoulders," began Mrs. Pet-
tingill in an offended tone: "How do
you know I want to shet up my house
an' go to live on my children ? I ain't
never said I wanted to an' what's more,
I don't know's I ever calc'lated to git
to a place in my life where I wa'n't
capable of takin' care of myself."

"My soul ! nobody that I know of
thinks you ain't capable of takin' care
of yourself, mother, but Dave's all
the time frettin' and fumin' because
you're livin' here alone ; he thinks
something'll happen to you, an' last
week Mary Ann an' Sarah was over
to our house visitin' — it's the first
time they've be'n to see me fur pritty
near a year — an' they was talkin'
about it an' fussin' because you
wouldn't come an' live with some of
us, an' fur my part, I don't see any
earthly reason why you don't." And
Almira Pettingill paused more for
lack of breath than want of words,
and regarded her mother-in-law with
cold severity.

579

580

A WINTER WOOING

"My land!" said old Mrs. Pet-
tingill, wrathfully, "I should think any
body with a mite of sense could see
why I don't. Do you s'pose any body
as old's I be wants to give up her
own home, where she's spent the heft
of her life, an' go an' sag down on
her children?"

"Mercy me, mother!" was the
.answer, "Don't anybody think you're
goin' to sag on 'em, but you know
you ain't got a child in the world but
what would be tickled most to death
to hev you live with 'em."

"Yes, I know they'd like to hev me,
but I can take a sight more comfort
here than I can anywhere else," and
the old face had a wistful, homesick
look, at the thought of leaving the
little old farmhouse that for the
greater part of her life had been a
silent witness of its joys and sorrows,
of the sunshine and storms that had
brought fair weather and foul to her
and hers. "No," she continued, "You
an' Dave an' the girls mean well,
but I'd ruther stay where I be."

"Well, I s'pose I might's well stop
talkin' ef you've made up your mind
to stay here ; but I can't see but
father's took jest as much coimfort
sense he sold his farm an' come to
live with Dave an' me, as he ever did ;
an' I thought you'd be company fur
each other — there comes Dave now
an' I ain't finished these pies an' I
don't s'pose he'll be willin' to wait,
a minute; it's too bad, mother! — "

"There ! there! Almiry!" interrupted
the old lady, impatiently ; "do put
your things on fur I mistrust Dave'll
be in a terrible whew, an' won't want
to wait a minute. I can finish the
pies myself. I guess I ain't forgot
how."

The stalwart form of her son just
then darkened the door; "Hullo
mother'!" was his greeting; "When
you comin' over to live with us? I
thought I'd stop some time next
week an' get you — hurry up, Almiry!
this hoss don't like to stand — whoa
there! — now, mother, you set the day
an' I'll be right over after you. Come,
come, Almiry, can't you be a little
spryer?"

Old Mrs. Pettingill watched her son
and his wife drive slowly up the long
hill, gradually ascending from the
front of her house, until a sudden turn
at the top hid them from her view;
then, turning, she gave a long, affec-
tionate look at the small, weather-
beaten house that had sheltered her
through so many years of sunshine
and shadow — there it stood, setting
well back from the road, its front
yard a wild tangle of snow-berries,
cinnamon roses, lilac bushes and the
old-fashioned flowers, now frost-
bitten and wilted, that she had planted
every year since she came there, a
bright-faced bride so many years ago.
A memory of these old days swept
over her as she stood there. She
could see the joy and gladness that
had filled the first few years when
love had lightened labor and made
all toil seem easy; then had come
the heavy burden of sorrow that had
left her alone with her four little ones
to care for, and her kind old eyes had
a look of sorrowful retrospection in
their depths as they glanced back
along the pathway of years that lay
behind her, heavy with their loads of
sorrow and care and anxiety. As she
thought of all these things, and how
she had struggled alone, unaided, ex-
cept by a brave and dauntless spirit,

A WINTER WOOING

581

and had brought her sons and daugh-
ters up good and honest men and
women, and at last had sent them
forth well-equipped into homes of
their own, a flush of pride warmed
her faded cheek, and she crossed the
threshold of her homely old kitchen,
saying to herself, "The old place has
been a good home to me all these
years an' why should I turn my back-
on it now? No, here I be,, an' here
I'm goin' to stay as long's I stay any-
where in this world. Dave an' the.
rest on 'em's good, but they don't
understand how 'tis. No, I couldn't
go an' live with anyone else an' take
a speck of comfort; they'll hev to git
that notion out o' their heads."

She finished the making of the pies
and cake, and then set about getting
her supper. When it was nearly
ready to take from the oven, she
turned up the leaf of her table and
spread a snowy piece of home-spun
linen, which she had woven years be-
fore, over it; and placed her food
upon it; there was a dish of smoking
hot beans with a brown, crisp piece
of pork in the middle, a plate of brown
bread and another of white and a dish
of big red apples baked until, through
the cracked skin, the inside showed
pinky white.

She looked at it with a new sense
of thankfulness, but, before sitting
down she filled a saucer with warm,
milk and placed it on the floor for the
big black cat, who sat in a flag-
bottomed chair by the kitchen stove,
blinking in sleepy content at the
warmth and comfort around him.

Mrs. Pettingill was not an old
woman who cared unduly fdr what
she ate, but to-night her supper
seemed to possess a subtile flavor of

home comfort, of warmth and snug-
ness and shelter, appealing more to
her spiritual sense of imagination than
to her coarser, more material sense of
the palate.

The next week Mrs. Pettingill's
son Dave came over to fix a place in
the kitchen roof that leaked, and after
a great deal of talking, persuaded his
mother to spend a week at his house,
promising if she did not like it, to
bring her back home again for the
winter.

The first few days of her visit
passed quite pleasantly, for there
were grand-children, sturdy little
boys, who thought the world of
"granny" ; and then there were vari-
ous improvements which David had
made on the place, that she must see.
And then she must be taken to look
at the piece of woodland that had
lately been bought. It was a cloudy,
damp day with an easterly wind when
Mrs. Pettingill went with her son to
inspect his new purchase, and the
energetic old lady took a heavy cold
which threatened to develop into
pneumonia, and after this, neither
Dave nor Almira would consent to
her return to her own home.

Old Mrs. Pettingill insisted, how-
ever, on having everything on the old
place made ready for winter in her
usual way. Every night she longed,
with a homesick longing, for her own
bed, in the small bedroom opening
off the kitchen, where she had slept
for so many years. The furnishings
of her son's house were luxurious in
comparison with her own, but she had
lived among her own belongings so
many years and loved them so well
that they had become idealized, and
instead of being inanimate objects to

582

A WINTER WOOING

her, they seemed to almost possess a
living, breathing individuality.

Almira's parlor, with its fine up-
holstered furniture and bright-
flowered Brussels carpet, its lace
curtains, its tidies and wax flowers
and hair wreath, fared ill when con-
trasted with her own beloved kitchen,
with its braided rugs and well-scoured
table and yellow chairs, the little light
stand between the two windows and
the tall old clock in the corner that
had told off the hours for so many
years. Almira was considered a won-
derful house-keeper and famous cook,
but the sweet spicy cakes, and rich
pastry that came out of her oven were
like dry chips to old Mrs. Pettingill,
and she longed hungrily for the baked
beans' and brown bread, for the rye
drop-cakes and Indian meal bannocks
she used to cook in her own home.
Even Tobias, her black cat, who had
accompanied his mistress on her visit
seemed homesick, and spent his days
curled up in Mrs. Pettingill's lap.
She looked out of the window and
saw the neighbors passing and re-
passing, for her son's house was on
the main-travelled road. She saw the
sunshiny front yard ankle deep with
bright-hued autumn leaves, and mut-
tered to herself, "tain't nowhere near's
pleasant as 'tis to home." Her only
comfort and solace, after the first
week, she found in the company of
Almira's father, Hiram Mitchell; he
had sold his farm and come to live
with his daughter because she thought
"father was too old to live alone;"
but, in spite of his daughter's asser-
tion that "father took just as much
comfort as he ever did," the active old
man missed the hard labor, and busy
life to which he had always been

accustomed, and spent many sorrow-
ful, homesick hours in his daughter's
house. Almira's house was almost
palatial compared with the little, long
low house that had been his home
for nearly seventy years, but its plain,
homely furnishings seemed more
homelike to his partial eyes, than any-
thing his daughter's house contained.
He was thirsty for a drink, drawn
from the sparkling depths of the old
well his grand-father had dug; while
no ambrosia of the gods would ever
taste so delicious as one of the pound
sweetings that grew on the knarled
old apple tree that stood in one cor-
ner of the yard. He and Mrs. Pet-
tingill had found considerable mourn-
ful enjoyment and sober satisfaction
in looking back over the years that
had flown, and talking over those days
so long ago, when life was young
and toil a pleasure. Together they
recalled the old times and talked in
friendly fashion of the life that 'lay
behind them, until one bright pleas-
ant day during the first week of
December, David, with Almira and
the two boys, had driven over to Led-
ham, to see Almira's sister and buy
a young horse David wanted. The
two old people were left alone. It
was then a daring thought flashed
through Mrs. Pettingill's brain; with
a triumphant gleam in her eyes she
called Mr. Mitchell in from the barn
where he was busily engaged in shell-
ing corn — for the active, alert old man
found the days far too long for him
unless he could "chore 'round" as he
called it. He was like a tough elm
that had been transplanted from its
native soil and refused to take root
in new ground. Mrs. Pettingill's visit
had been a great pleasure to him; it

A WINTER WOOING

583

had made a bright spot in his lonely
life; for the two had many tastes in
common and they enjoyed, as is
natural in old people, living in the
past. Now he came out of the barn
in answer to Mrs. Pettingill's sum-
mons, a ruddy-faced, pleasant looking
man; "Good land, grandpa!" called
the impatient old woman. "What
makes you so slow? Do step along
a little mite spryer. I declare it does
seem's if you was the slowest mortal
I ever see!"

"Sho' now, Mis' Pettingill," was the
answer, as he came slowly towards
the house, "I wouldn't git so excited
if I was you. What ye in sich a
twitter about? Anything happened?"

"Ain't nothing happened; but I
want you to harness the hoss an' take
me home as quick's you can," and
Mrs. Pettingill's faded blue eyes
gleamed as determinedly now, as they
ever had in her younger days; "I've
stood this jest as long's I can an' I'm
goin' home today. It's a good chance
fur Dave an' Almiry won't be back
'til late an' Dave'll hev so many chores
to do that he can't come after me
to-night an' I guess by mornin' he'll
be capable o' seein' things as I do; at
any rate I'm goin' home! I'll fly
'round an' get my things together an'
you see if Tobias is out to the barn.
Poor cat! he's as homesick's I be!
I'm goin' to put some vittles in a
basket an' we'll eat our dinner before
you start back. Now hurry, do, fur
it seems's if I couldn't wait to get
back to my little old house."

Before long Mr. Mitchell drove up
to the front gate, and after putting
Mrs. Pettingill's various bundles and
boxes into the back of the sleigh, he
tucked the buffalo robe carefully

around her and with Tobias snugly
bestowed in a basket on the seat be-
tween them, the two old people jogged
contentedly away. It was a pleasant
day; and snow sparkled and glistened
in the sunlight and the air was cool
and crisp.

"Pleasant, ain't it?" queried Mr.
Mitchell, inhaling a deep breath. "I
declare, weather like this makes a man
feel ambitious. I wish I was goin'
home to my old farm; kinder breaks
a man up to go an' live with his
children ef they be good to him. He
feels lost, so to speak, as ef he didn't
hev no place in the world nor no work
to do. I snum ! I must have ben
an all-fired fool when I sold my farm !
But there ! it's done an' can't be helped,
I s'pose.'

" 'Tis hard ; yes, 'tis hard," assented
Mrs. Pettingill soberly ; "somehow the
children don't seem to sense how bad
'tis fur us after workin' hard all our
lives to settle down an' be contented
to do nothing, 'tain't natural, an' I
feel to be thankful that I've kept my
little farm an' still hev a home o' my
own. I've got four children an' thank
the Lord! they all want me; but I
ain't goin' to stay with none of 'em;
my home's the best fur me."

"So 'tis, so 'tis," agreed Mr. Mitch-
ell. "You've got a nice place there.
But 've thought you hed pretty tough
times after Silas died an' left you
with all them young ones an' not much
to do with."

"Yes, I did so," was Mrs. Pettingill's
answer. "But there," and a flash of
pride brightened her tired old eyes,
"I enjoyed copin' with difficulties an'
I hed somethin' to work fur. I think
them was my best an' happiest days,
fur the children grew so fast an' they

584

A WINTER WOOING

was bright an' smart's anybody's
children an' I brought 'em up to be
truth-tellin', God-fearin' men an'
women."

"That you did, Betsey,' was her
companion's hearty response, "You
done a sight better than some women
would in your place."

"Yes, my old house has seen hard
struggles an' poor fare, but it's be'n
a good home to me, though I don't
deny it's kinder lonesome sometimes,
'specially at night when I don't hev
nobody f er company but Tobias ; an'
he's gittin' old ; I can't expect to keep
him much longer. I must be lookin'
'round fur a likely young kitten fur
he's most too old to hunt now. There,"
as they reached the turn in the road
and saw her old home lying at the
foot of the hill, "there 'tis, as natural's
ever." And long before they had
reached the bottom of the hill, her
eager spirit had passed through the
doorway and entered the familiar
rooms, glorifying each homely piece
of furnishing with its loving glance.
Ah ! it was sweet to be coming home
once more, and Mrs. Pettingill felt a
pang of pity for the downcast old man
at her side. "Ain't there no way of
buyin' back your old farm, Hiram?"
she inquired of her silent companion.

"Lordy, no," was the answer, "I did
try once, unbeknownst to Almiry ; but
it wa'n't no use; the man liked the
place too well to sell it. But, see here,
Betsey, I've been thinkin' — why can't
you an' me strike a bargain? You've
got to hev a man to work the farm an'
I've got a comfortable little sum out
to interest — seems to me we might
take solid comfort together. I ain't

hard to get along with an' I used to
hev a mighty notion after you when
we was young, but I was too darned
bashful in them days to let you know
it an' then Silas stepped in an' walked
off with ye. Come, what do you say
to it?" and he edged as near his old
friend as the basket containing Tobias,
would permit.

"Law, Hiram, what do you s'pose
the children would say!" and Mrs.
Pettingill's wrinkled face reddened like
a girl's. "I don't deny that 'twould
be master comfortable; but there, two
old folks like us hed orter know better
than to talk sech foolishness."

" 'Tain't foolishness," stoutly main-
tained the eager old man. "We're old
enough to know what we want, an' I
don't know's the children on either
side hev any right to say I, yes or no.
We've took good care of 'em an' done
our best by 'em an' now I guess we've
a right to suit ourselves ; say yes, do
Betsey, before we git to the house,
an' we'll both feel more to home.

"Well, I don't know," began Mrs.
Pettingill, dubiously, as they neared
the house, "I s'pose 'twould be good
in some ways. Land ! yes, I don't
know but we might's well."

"Right you are, Betsey," exclaimed
the jubilant old lover as he sprang
out of the sleigh and lifting Mrs. Pet-
tingill to the ground implanted a
hearty smack on her lips. "We ain't
goin' to let no grass grow under our
feet, neither, to-morrer's jest as good a
day's we'll hev an' we'll drive over
to old Parson Dexter's an' then we
can feel's though we was livin' once
more. Lord! but it will seem good
to know we are to home agin !"

My Little'lLass

By Elvira Sydnor Miller

I HEARD the minstrels play last night
There in the long and lighted hall,
And saw you passing gowned in white,

The star, the splendor of the ball.
Your dusky lovelocks softly blew

About your face in their old way,
And all men's eyes looked love on you —
My little lass of yesterday.

Still in those tender eyes there shone

The April light of childhood fair,
A rose, you seemed too freshly blown

To wither in the ballroom air.
The stately matrons praised your grace,

They eyed you in their worldly way,
They set a price upon your face,

My little lass of yesterday.

The old men, too, as you passed by

Like music wafted on the air,
Heaved many a sad regretful sigh

For vanished loves as sweet as fair.
For radiant eyes and brows of snow

Now veiled by marbles cold and gray,
Alack, the rose of Long Ago,

My little lass of yesterday.

It seems but one short year ago

Since you and I told fairy stories,
And now I sigh and wish to know

If you have quite forgot their glories.
Forgot the fairy prince whose kiss

Should wake you in the old sweet way,
Forgot the lands where sunset is —

My little lass of yesterday.

You smile, you blush, say can it be,

The fairy prince has come to find you,
To lead you back to Arcady

And with Love's golden fetters bind you.
What he ! This wrinkled beau who stands

Before you smirking, old and gray,
Too soon the world and you strike hands,

My little lass of yesterday.

585

The Miracle of Irrigation

By Day Allen Willey

DRAW it till it gets cold,"
says the housewife as she
hands you the cup and
points to the pump beside
the doorway, and you do not stop
to count the quarts and gallons
that flow through the moss-grown
trough just for that one drink.
Or if you plunge your face into the
brimming bucket as it is poised on the
well rim she bids you have a care lest
any of it fall back into the cool
depths, and splash it goes upon the
grass beneath, so thick and green from
the constant moistening. Water,
water everywhere and every drop to
drink. How often the Westerner
thinks of his old home, every wood-
land patch with its pool and a spring
at every turn of the way gushing
forth in a miniature cataract or trick-
ling in a tiny rivulet from rocky
crevices. Should the creek run dry
in the pasture, the cattle can be driven
to the neighboring field where flows
another, in which they drink and wade
before seeking the shade of the trees
by its bank. Not only in the door-
yard but in the barnyard sometimes
there still hangs the "old oaken"
or some other kind of bucket from the
rusty chain, and the one far away re-
members how his father taught him
the right twitch to give so as to fill it.
As he looks over the Western land
stretching away as far as eye can
reach, the vista unbroken by rock or
586

tree or hillock, — miles and miles with
never a brook or well, and weeks and
months when not even a cloud the
size of a man's hand drifts across the
sky, — this mental picture of the past
becomes more vivid and how often
and how intensely he covets even the
water dashed from the bucket after
his thirst was quenched, and what he
pumped out to get the drink cool.
His horse may carry him a day's jour-
ney over a country every acre of
which is his, and its hoofs sink into
earth rich in all the elements that bring
forth the stalk and the plant, but dried
into worthless powder by the rays of
the summer sun. The creek which in
the spring became a muddy river
overflowing its banks far and wide is
now a series of pools from which he
hauls his water barrels many long
miles to the farmhouse where their
contents are as carefully preserved as
is the store of food. .He is grateful
for enough to sustain animal life even
if all vegetation must wither from
lack of moisture. Every schoolboy
can define the word drouth, but only
the child of the prairie knows its
meaning; and when with father or
mother he is taken back to where
"grandpa used to live" and sees the
wells and brooks and ponds, small
wonder is it that his eyes dilate, for
here is indeed a foreign land.

This is not a story of yesterday, but
of the present, in spite of all that we

588

THE MIRACLE OF IRRIGATION

A Few Sugar Beets Waiting Shipment at
Fort Collins, Col. This Pile is 1,200
Feet Long, 120 Feet Wide and 15
Feet Deep

have heard about irrigation. Such a
vast region is thirsting for water that
though mile after mile of canals and
great artificial lakes has been made,
only a few million acres have been
reclaimed. How differently the West-
ern farmer regards space ! The hun-
dred or two hundred acres that may
make a man wealthy in New England
are merely a single field to the grower
whose corn may cover a thousand
acres and who employs scores of la-
borers to gather his wheat at harvest
time. About eight million acres are
traversed by the canals big and little,
of which 50,000 miles have been dug;
the grainfields of all New England
contain but 350,000 acres, and adding
the rich valleys and plains of New
York gives less than 3,000,000. The
corn, wheat and oats of New Eng-
land, New York, New Jersey, Penn-
sylvania and Delaware could be grown
m the irrigated territory which is as
large as Nebraska and Iowa, the two
greatest cornfields on the globe. But
there is yet to be conquered a domain
stretching away over hill and plain
and valley a thousand miles from
north to south and fifteen hundred
miles from east to west. Of course
not all is waste, but the surveyor has
travelled through its length and
breadth and has mapped out the coun-
try which as yet is no man's, merely
for lack of nourishment. Great re-
gions will be forever parched as
neither river nor lake is near enough
to moisten them, but over a hundred
million — to be exact 120,000,000 —
acres can be made to blossom, per-
haps not as the rose, but can be con-
verted into a land of plenty when over-
spread by the waters above and be-
neath them. It startles one to con-

589

' mt.

*>.

V^^- ■■

The Desert

? v*N

*r 41

Four Crops at Once

sqo

Lake Avalon Dam, Carlsbad, N. M.

template the possible changes in the
United States when the silence of
desolation which prevails in this great
expanse gives place to the call of the
plough boy, the lowing of cattle and
the crow and cackle of fowls. A
country three time as large as
all New England and greater
than the far Eastern and Middle
States combined, it exceeds any
commonwealth in size save that
empire in itself — Texas. All of
the farmers of Great Britain and
Canada could till their present fields
within it and space be left for Ger-
many. All of the wheat seed planted
in the United States each season could
be grown within it and nearly enough
room spared to raise our annual oat
crop.

These figures are interesting, for
they have helped win a battle which
has been waging for nearly forty
years in the halls of Congress — a
struggle ^p have great national water
592

works from which the life-giving
liquid could be conveyed to the arid
lands. Year after year, East and West
opposed each other on Capitol Hill.
What has been done in the spreading
of the waters has shown what can be
done when the government itself
blocks gorge and valley, forming
reservoirs each of which will fertilize
a thousand or a million acres.

Strange it is but the scientist has
proved it true that when you take a
little patch of sand such as is found
in some of the deserts of the West and
allow water to soak into it, a combina-
tion is formed from which the plant
or stalk springs more vigorously even
than from the dark, rich soil watered
by the rainfall and dew. Many of
what we call "staple" crops are not as
abundant when grown in ground
naturally irrigated as when planted in
the field or garden rescued from the
barrens. When the war of the West
and the East was being fought in Con-

THE MIRACLE OF IRRIGATION

593

gress, an expert from the Department
of Agriculture came to the aid of the
West with some figures. Pennsyl-
vania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois are
noted for their fertile farms and their
abundant harvests. He compared this
corner of the country with Idaho,
Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, New
Mexico and Utah where the water has
been diverted to flow over what was
once sterile plain. Each harvest for
ten years in this region of irrigation
yielded an average of one bushel of
wheat more to the acre, two bushels of
rye, two bushels of barley, seven and
a half bushels of potatoes than
did those for the same period in the
four states on the other side of the
Mississippi. The expert also proved
that the farmer who cast his lot on the
border of the arid lands had produced
one bushel of wheat to the acre, one'
of oats, two of rye, one of barley and
eleven of potatoes more than the aver-
age yearly harvest of the whole coun-

try during the same period. He has
gone into a desert, in some places as
barren as Sahara, making of it field,
orchard and garden.

From Dakota and Montana to the
Rio Grande and from the Missouri to
the Pacific can be seen the oases made
by the irrigators. The monotonous
vista spotted with patches of chapar-
ral, cactus and sagebush, often ex-
tending beyond the horizon bare of
any green thing, has here and there
given place to prosperity seen in the
masses of waving grain, varied by
mile after mile of trees laden with
fruit interspersed with farm homes
and villages, the canals gleaming like
silver ribbons in the sunlight. Men
are probably living who yet remember
urging their wearied horses through
the burning sand of eastern Colorado
when they followed Fremont in his
expedition through this pathless, life-
less region. The gold hunters of '49
struggled through the waterless val-

ifrrfffffit'

iJR'MHflTO

Big Irrigation Flume (over Pecos River), N. M.

594

THE MIRACLE OF IRRIGATION

leys of California destitute of every-
thing save sand and rock, some to
drop down and die of thirst in sight
of the wealth-bearing ledges. In the
transcontinental journey there are
hours when on the warmest summer
day the traveller must close the car
window to keep from suffocating in
the hot air laden with alkali dust
which pours- in from the desert he is
crossing — a desert strewn with the
bones of man and beast for the last
fifty years. Yet it is in such a coun-
try that water is doing its magical
work. Already it has wrought won-
ders in the Colorado sand hills. The
deadly valleys of California have be-
come vineyards and orchards and
gardens supplying the tables in far-
away New England and New York,
and even selling their products in the
markets of London and Paris as well.
The "Staked Plain" of the South-

west which has taken the life of
many a man who has attempted to
cross its expanse has become a cen-
tre of the new civilization, and its
terrors so often described by the
traveller and depicted by the his-
torian will soon be only a memory.
Yet the people of the West have
merely been following for a quarter of
a century what was done ages ago. If
one were writing the history of irri-
gation he must go back to the biblical
days. The work of the ancient inhab-
itants of the world is to be seen in the
Nile Valley in walls constructed so
solidly that they are still utilized to
confine the waters. The plains about
Babylon were fertilized from reser-
voirs, portions of which are pointed
out to the tourist; while the Spanish
invaders of Mexico were given a les-
son by the Aztec engineers who per-
haps were the pioneers in America in

Lake Building, near Fort Collins, Col.

Ditches and Flood Gates in Pecos Valley, N. M.

the artificial application of water to
the soil. To-day tribes in Arizona and
New Mexico get a scanty subsistence
from grain and vegetables springing
from the banks of the shallow ditch
they have dug through their patches
of ground in sight of the yet imposing
ruins of the past. Their limited
knowledge of irrigation is doubtless
inherited, for the scientists admit that
the famous Pimas of Arizona were
experts in this, as a study of the his-
tory which nature has furnished
proves. The methods which they, as
well as the builders of the Old World,
pursued are still followed. The en-
gineer of to-day has his instruments
which establish a more accurate grade
for the flow of the water; he knows
about the geological formation so that

he can build his dam or reservoir on
a surer foundation, and the human
digger, shoveller and carrier have been
replaced to a great extent by labor-
saving machines, some of which will
do the day's work of a hundred men,
but he has not ceased to wonder at the
marvellous workmanship displayed in
the erection of the massive walls of
masonry and the mile after mile of
conduit, some of it in the shadow of
the Pyramids and some in the heart of
Old Mexico.

If the Rocky Mountains could be
torn down we might see water as
abundant in the West as in New Eng-
land. As the clouds, laden with moist-
ure, drift in from the Pacific they are
caught by the mountain tops and
robbed of the nourishment that na-

595

596

THE MIRACLE OF IRRIGATION

ture intended for "arid America,"
but the irrigator is obtaining his
revenge by forcing the hills which
shut off the rain clouds to aid him
in his work.

Not so long ago the Poudre River
flowed through the valley of that
name, at the head merely a range of
cliffs rent in twain by a convulsion of
long ago, but farther down another
natural wall turned aside the stream
which forced its way seaward, leaving
the remainder of the valley barren. If
some way could be found to bring it
through the barrier its waters would
convert this waste into plenty, and so
the men who decided to make the
attempt finally succeeded in boring a
hole through the granite nearly a thou-
sand feet in length and large enough
to allow all of the water even in the
freshet season to pass. An aqueduct
of stout planks and beams was built
against the side of the mountain, sup-
ported on wooden stilts high in the

air and in places bound to the cliff by
huge iron arms. Other tunnels were
constructed, and finally an artificial
channel a mile in length was com-
pleted. It carried the Poudre to a nar-
row cleft where its waters could be
held in check to be poured into thir-
teen reservoirs so that as fast as one
is filled the surplus of precious liquid
is turned into another. This was the
birthplace of irrigation in Colorado
where two million acres are now nur-
tured. The conversion of the valley
into a series of fertile farms caused
other mountain gorges to be walled
and the pent up waters to be turned
into a network of canals.

From artificial lakes in California
flow streams that are rivers in width
and depth, some carried high in the air
in the "flumes" and discharging their
contents fifty and seventy-five miles
away upon valley and plain where
trees and vines yield almost as much
wealth as the gold which first tempted

At the Gate of a Canal

598

THE MIRACLE OF IRRIGATION

Harvesting Alfalfa

the adventurer to this region. Per-
haps nowhere in the world has water
so transformed barren desolation into
a paradise of fruit and flowers as in
the Golden State where one can ride
on the banks of canals and branches
which would extend 2,000 miles if dug
in a straight line. There is the San
Luis system, a river made by man 250
miles in length feeding 2,000 miles
of canal and ditch which interlace
its valley with arteries filled with
life-giving fluid. La Junta, 864
miles long, fills its channel from
six reservoirs, one of which cov-
ers twenty square miles of sur-
face.

The river of the West is indeed
capricious. On one day the horseman
may ride across its sandy bottom dry
shod, to return a week later and find
it "bank full" from a cloudburst in
the Rockies a hundred miles away. It
cuts its way through the prairie like a
huge serpent or when it takes a fancy
makes a new channel leaving a ragged
gap in the soil as a reminder of its
former bed, but by degrees it is being
tamed and held in bondage. Many a
prospector knows by his own experi-
ence of the terrors of the American
Sahara whose "trails" are too plainly

marked by the skeleton of man and
beast and the wreck of the "prairie
schooner," but into its edge the waters
are working. Down in New Mexico
a dark line on the horizon has saved
the life of many a fortune seeker
struggling through the burning sands
of the Pecos valley, for it meant he
was nearing the Rio Pecos, coursing
between its fringe of trees and bushes,
and it gave him hope to push forward
to the "precious water" as it has been
called. What a change has taken
place here ! The desert trail is only a
memory. In its place is a way of steel
along which rushes the locomotive and
from the car window the passenger
sees the panorama of the farm un-
folded— -the hay makers in the alfalfa
patch, thousands • of sheep quietly
browsing on the rich herbage, the
plough turning over the stubble for
the wheat seed, the fruit pickers amid
the trees, the houses of the farmers
with their ample barns and fodder
stacks, while every few miles the train
stops at one of the towns or cities
scattered throughout the valley, each
with its busy, happy people. The vis-
itor finds himself in the centre of a

'£'• ;

H
\ \

■UkI

THE MIRACLE OF IRRIGATION

599

new civilization. Yet every farm has
been created out of the barren waste
and the pastures where fatten the
sheep and the fields where flourish the
grain sustained absolutely nothing
but the cactus and sagebush, until
the river was forced to help by the
work of the irrigator. The two arti-
ficial lakes formed by -blocking its
channel with stone barriers make
habitable 300,000 acres which support
a hundred thousand people, where for-
merly not a man could live.

Almost as wonderful is the trans-
formation where the ''waters under
the earth" have been drawn out and
forced over its surface. In some por-
tions of Nebraska and Dakota one
sees the windmills like the trees of
the forest, so thickly do they stand on
the prairie, each moving a mechanical
muscle that takes the place of the well
windlass and the pump arm. Far
away to the south the new Acadia
rests on a wonderful subterranean sea.
The top of the prairie has been pierced
in hundreds of places, but steam en-
gines do the work of the windmills,
lifting the water from the reservoir
nature has created for the rice grow-
ers, and throwing it in cascades into
the canals.

In the history of this invasion of
the wilderness a variety of themes are
offered for the pen of the novelist —
stories of failure as well as success —
stories of heroism through patient
years of suffering ending in failure.
Many an opening has been made
across the plain and valley through
which the water never flowed because
some one had blundered, and the
abundant harvest which the settler
had counted upon as reward of his

toil and waiting has, mirage-like,
lured him to his death. The pioneers
in the arid country were put to a test
perhaps more severe than the men and
women who first saw Plymouth Rock,
for the Puritans had some sustenance
afforded by nature when they reached
the western shore, while the wander-
ers of later times had none, save that
borne by their packhorses or carried
in their wagons.

The waste places that have been
turned into a land of plenty have been
so by the sweat of the brow. • After
the waters have spread over the earth
from seedtime until its ripening, every
day brings its labor to be performed,
sometimes from before the dawn until
after dark.

When the new history of the South-
west is written one chapter which it
will contain will be the story which is
still told of the brothers who guided
the plough through the prairie sod to
loosen it so they could dig with their
own hands the first watercourse of the
series which was to turn 350,000 acres
into a vast ricefield. The Dusons
were of the people who had migrated
from the other Land of Evangeline
to seek their fortune in the new
Acadia, but unlike many of their fel-
lows, poverty had not cast them down.
Believing that nature would in the
end reward them, day after day they
toiled side by side in the trench amid
the jeers of their neighbors who were
content to harvest their few bushels
from the patches moistened by
heaven and fitly termed "Providence
rice." The weeks became months be-
fore the half mile ditch reaching from
the Dusons' farm to the water supply
was completed, but there came a day

600

THE MIRACLE OF IRRIGATION

when a few shovelfuls of earth re-
moved the final barrier and the trench
became an artery to nourish their
grain to maturity. Not a house, not
a tree stood thereabouts on the prairie,
but the brothers had a vision of a
city teeming with life and prosperity.
They went to the president of the
railroad company whose band of steel
crossing the waste was its only con-
nection with the outside world, and
asked that a train be stopped by their %
field. The president laughed, "What
is the use? not even a tent stands
there."

"We are going to have a town
there^' said the brothers. The presi-
dent had heard of the ditch. He had
seen the country from his car window
and he laughed again. The brothers
went away but came back a few days
later.

"Will you stop one train a day if we
will furnish a depot and pay the salary
of an agent?"

The president finally agreed to this
and the Dusons went to the nearest
settlement and obtained a wooden shed

which they moved on rollers across
the country to the town site, and hired
an agent. Their capital had been ex-
hausted. They borrowed enough
money to pay for surveying the town
site — and waited. Meanwhile Nature
was doing her work. The shoots in
the field sprang up thick and green
until the gradual change to gold
showed the grain was ready for the
reaper in a harvest such as had never
been heard of before in the Southwest.
It was a magnet that attracted near-
by country folk as well as people from
the North and West. Houses began
to go up about the shed which was
called the station, then stores, then rice
mills, as other canals were built and
other fields irrigated. Crowley devel-
oped into a hamlet, then a village and
at last the brothers who were so con-
fident that their vision would become
a reality saw a city of nearly 7,000
people, the metropolis of the "rice
belt," surrounded by mile after mile of
fertile fields and in the heart of the
50,000 farms all reclaimed from the
desolate prairie.

Tis an 111 Strike That Does
Nobody Good

By George Bloodgood

AS the price of coal went up,
the hearts of the trustees of
. the Home for Aged Women
went down. There was bare-
ly money enough in its treasury to
buy coal at a normal price, for the
city was having a reform mayor.
Now that is not a terrible thing to
have, necessarily; it is not true, as
the opposition urges, that nothing
else, except the gypsy moth or an
automobile runaway, can cut such a
swath of desolation in a town. But
it is certain that His Honor got into
office by promising to reduce taxes,
and was therefore obliged to reduce
the city appropriations so that vari-
ous institutions suffered in their
special ways. The public library
could not afford to buy more than
one copy of "The Confessions of a .
Wife"; the city ambulance grew so
badly in need of paint that it was
considered adding insult to injury to
have to be taken anywhere in it; and
the Home for the Aged came to look
literally what it was commonly called,
the Aged Home.

The trustees of this Home sat in
puzzled council one late October day,
around a gas-heater which could not
dispel the chill produced by the first
snow squall without. There were
eight directors, one from eacli ward
of the town; they were men and

women, and they were all berating
the mayor.

"He says," quoted the senior di-
rector, "that you 'can't make a silk
purse out of a sow's ear* — this insti-
tution being the purse and the city
treasury the aural appendage, I sup-
pose."

"He says," volunteered the junior
director, "that it is no worse to be
cold in a Home written with a capital
than in a home written with a small
letter."

"He says," laughed the cheerful
director, "that it is a hard season, and
people grumble over their taxes as
they never did before. I told him
that was so, — never since the year
when I was mayor myself."

"He says," snarled the sour direct-
or, "that it would be cheaper to close
this Home and board the old ladies
at the hotel which got its coal last
spring."

"Let's do it," remarked the quiet
member who had never spoken at a
trustee meeting before.

The men had been having their
say. Now the women chimed in.

"What a crazy idea, just as we
have new furniture coverings and
a larger refrigerator," protested the
one who always spoke before she
thought.

"Couldn't we then dispense with

601

602

'TIS AN ILL STRIKE

the services — and the salary — of the
matron?" asked the practical one.

"What a lovely interesting change
it would make for the old ladies," said
the sweet woman who generally was
right.

There was silence for a few minutes
while the idea took root and grew.

Then the president of the board
drew paper and pencil to him and be-
gan to figure.

"The mayor is right," he an-
nounced. "We should make money
by the experiment."

"Oh-h ! make money and build a
new wing with it," cried the one who
always spoke first.

"Make money so that another city
department can have more to spend —
more coal for the police station so the
tramps can sleep warm," muttered
the grumbler.

"Sufficient unto the trustees of an
institution is the current year there-
of," paraphrased the president. "The
pros and cons might be summed up
like this;" and he gave an able
resume.

The directors whiffled as the
weather vane outside, but when at
sunset the sky cleared and a glow
made all things rose-colored, a unani-
mous vote had been taken, and a look
of enterprise, amusement and defiance
was on the faces of the board.

After duly notifying the mayor, the
city government, the reporters, in fact,
everybody who was not vitally inter-
ested in the change, the president of
the directors assembled the old ladies
who had so much at stake, and told
them, in what he considered a delicate
and reassuring way, that their Home
for the coming season would be the
best hotel in town. Outside the par-

lor, the sweet woman was waiting to
heal the wounds she knew he would
make.

"Oh, yes," she said, as the old peo-
ple streamed forth, dazed, "it will
cost us less, but you will have lots
more fun. You must think of it as
if you were just closing your country
house for a season."

"What shall we do for church ser-
vices?" was Mrs. Atkins's first ques-
tion.

"It will enable me to see more of
society," said Miss Abalinda Foss.

"We ought to have died with our
husbands," sighed a widow.

But the cripple of them all, Panthea
Brown, the one who could least bear
transplanting, as her chair was
pushed through' the doorway, looked
into the trustee's face and smilingly
said, "Aren't you bright to think of
ways and means?"

The scheme met with all sorts of
comments from the town at large. It
was nearly wrecked by the partisan-
ship of one minister who prayed for
the poor souls who were to be
dropped from the bar of heaven to the
bar of a hotel.

But by Thanksgiving the fourteen
old ladies were well settled in the best
rooms of the annex which was con-
nected with the hotel by a covered
bridge. As November twenty-sev-
enth approached, it was feared that
hotel turkey would seem tasteless to
those who for years had compared
notes as to how they used to mix
their own stuffing. The landlord
kindly offered to serve a private din-
ner for the fourteen, but the sweet
woman urged to him and to her fel-
low directors, "No, it is part of the
year's plan for them to see and be

THAT DOES NOBODY GOOD

603

seen. The sight of so many nice old
ladies will do good to the stray drum-
mers and the homesick bell-boys you
will have with you on the day, and if
the ladies are served in your usual din-
ing-room, their talk cannot be as sadly
reminiscent as if they were in a sep-
arate room. And they shall have a
guest of honor at their table, any one
they like."

Of course they chose her to be this
guest, but she declined, having a
standing engagement to play the dual
role of wife and mother on all
Thanksgiving days. They quarrelled
a little over a second choice, but
finally United on inviting the elevator
boy who had hurt his hand that morn-
ing. Fortunately he was able to eat
enough to give each of the fourteen
the pleasure in turn of cutting his
meat and replenishing his flotilla of
side dishes.

The winter weeks sped on in what
Miss Abalinda Foss termed a whirl of
gayety. Did not theatrical troupes
stop at the hotel? Were not eminent
lecturers dined there before going to
address the Woman's Club? Did not
a prima donna practise gloriously in
her private suite below their rooms?
Each old lady extracted enjoyment in
her own way. To Mrs. Atkins the
nightly parade of the Salvation Army
spoke of abounding religion. The
relict, finding herself near the public
library, derived much comfort there-
from, and before the winter was over
was heard to ask for Fawcett's "Ad-
ventures of a Widow." Crippled
Panthea Brown, accustomed to take
her pleasures vicariously, was re-
joiced when her chair was the means
of giving Abalinda Foss a treat. The
waiter had wheeled the chair upon the

train of a lady entering the dining-
room, and a sound of ripping and
tearing followed. Panthea cringed
before a dreaded look of, Nuisance!
in the lady's eyes, but a good-natured
face turned to look at the torn flounce
and eyed, not so much Panthea, as
Abalinda who hurried forward beg-
ging to be allowed to repair the dam-
age.

"Please let me sew it on. I used
to be a seamstress ; I'd like to for my
friend's sake," nodding toward Pan-
thea ; "and besides," with a candor
which charmed the lady, "it is such a
lovely dress, I'd like to work on it."

"Why, if you will be so kind," said
the lady, who was the great actress
she was because she read hearts so
well, and divined that the dressy old-
fashioned person had never had her
fill of finery. "Come to my room,
number 2, after dinner."

Abalinda's guileless enjoyment of
this world's goods was so evident as
she entered sumptuous number 2, that
the great tragedienne hastened to say
that her maid must accompany her to
the matinee, but that if, Miss Foss,
was it ? cared to take a stitch here and
there, she would be extremely obliged;
and out upon the bed and chairs,
from trunks and wardrobes, were
tossed gowns which seemd to Aba-
linda fit only for queens at corona-
tions. Her search for needed stitches
was poorly rewarded, but she had a
blissful afternoon handling the ex-
quisite stuffs, and that evening she
described the dresses to her circle.

But omitting other intermediate
joys, this narrative must move on to
Inauguration Day, and recount how
Miss Abalinda really entered society.
The hotel was directly opposite the

604

'TIS AN ILL STRIKE

State House, and it was the custom
of the newly elected governor to pro-
ceed from the one to the other to take
his official seat and be duly sworn in.
In the big parlors of the hotel were
wont to assemble the state dignitaries
with their families, and thence, after
dinner, they marched, two by two,
across the. street and up the shaded
avenue, and disappeared from vulgar
eyes inside the great portal of the
State House. Our old ladies were in
a flutter over the prospect of seeing
the pageant from such a vantage
ground. To crippled Panthea Brown
had been given the largest chamber in
the annex fronting on the main
street, and she eagerly offered its
windows for the day to her com-
panions.

"I would rather not look myself,"
she said faintly. "It was trying to
peek in on the governor's taking the
oath, by climbing up on a statue in
the State House yard, that I got my
fall, years ago. The Lord sat me
down hard for that."

One and all thanked her joyfully
for the window privilege, all except
Abalinda Foss, who decided in her
own mind that she would not stay
cooped up in that room on that day.
Had she not, when a seamstress,
hemmed miles of ruffling to bedeck
the belles of inauguration balls ? Had
she not, as dressmaker, cut high-
necked dresses into low-necked ones
for these same festivities? Had she
not, among her collection of pins and
needles, — and she had a remarkable
one, — the needle a friend broke in
sewing an unflinching back-bone into
the gown of a governor's wife?
Should she now be so near, and yet
so far from an inauguration ? No !

as many times as there were pins in
a paper, no !

On the eventful morning the old
ladies met in Panthea's front room,
all, it was noted, in their best array.
Good Mrs. Atkins, however, thought
to mitigate the frivolity of watching
a worldly show by bringing only her
near-to spectacles, and leaving her
far-off in the bureau drawer.

At noon a bitter disappointment
came nearer than they realized. The
landlord had suggested that the regu-
lar guests be served at a second table
to avoid the crowd, but again the
sweet woman had interposed. "Not
that arrangement for our charges,
please ; they will want to eat when and
what the governor does, and he is
just the man to want the flowers sent
from his table to theirs."

Consequently our fourteen friends
dined simultaneously with the guber-
natorial party, and then resumed, all
but one, their seats in Panthea's cham-
ber. The street below was an en-
trancing sight. A menagerie of
human beings thronged the sidewalks,
beside which were hitched surpris-
ingly varied teams from the rural dis-
tricts. Every child possessed or was
crying for a squeaking toy balloon.
There promenaded a woman innocent
of any knowledge of hairpins, whose
twisted locks were confined by a nail
thrust into the coil. Happy couples
hand in hand were too frequent to
cause comment. Venders of all sorts
plied their trade, and the babies sam-
pled everything they sold. Flags
flew so numerously as really to ob-
struct the view. The militia of the
state rested arms in front of the hotel,
waiting to be reviewed by the gov-
ernor. His aids, uniformed and

THAT DOES NOBODY GOOD

Co5

mounted, looked more than mortal
men. Everybody was on tiptoe with
expectation, Miss Abalinda among the
rest. She had come last of the old
ladies from the dining-room, and
passing by the big parlor, had lingered
behind the others and slipped within
its folding doors. She was wearing,
for some reason best known to her-
self, her heaviest black cap which
much resembled a bonnet, and she
carried her mitts. Her face was
flushed with her daring resolve to dip
into the street, and she looked stately
and fair enough to be anybody's el-
derly relative.

As she glided about, looking at the
floral decorations and weighting a
sword forgotten on the piano, the
dignitaries trooped in from dinner,
and instantly all was crowding and
hurry. The marshal of the day flew
about pairing people for the proces-
sion, and after he had the civil and
military worthies ranged with wives
and daughters for the short march,
he saw with dismay an eminent, pecu-
liar and aged lawyer from the north
of the state standing like the children
in the game, awaiting for a partner.
In the next second, with the eye of 'a
general, he espied Miss Abalinda, se-
creting under the edge of her basque
the pin which the governor had tossed
down as he withdrew the boutonniere
which he fastidiously realized was
already wilted.

"Madam," said the marshal, speak-
ing suddenly and peremptorily, "will
you favor us by falling into line with
Judge Fox?"

He gesticulated the introduction
and assigned their place all at once,
and Miss Abalinda never drew breath
until she laid her mitted hand upon

her escort's arm, and they began to
mark time preparatory to following
the couples already moving to the in-
spiring sound of a brass band. Her
companion shuffled along as if the
music came from a melodeon and said
nothing, but Miss Abalinda held her
head high and pranced. She was not
watching the show now ; she was part
of it. Thousands were looking on
and cheering. She spent the brief
time of the spectacular passage from
hotel to State House in planning what
she should say to the governor; for
her dazzled fancy pictured a scene
under the gilded dome very different
from the reality of the formal inau-
gural rites.

These took place in the hall of
representatives which had not been
opened for two years, and as she sat
in the lifeless air, her escort forced
for lack of room to stand at a dis-
tance, her courage began to wane, and
she thought of the harboring chamber
across the way. She feared to be seen
and misunderstood by the sweet
woman who sat with the ladies of the
governor's family near the platform.
At the first bustle of conclusion of the
programme, she rose and fled out into
the crowd now picnicking on the grass,
down through the files of soldiers, and
across the street where she felt that
forty centuries looking down upon her
would be as nothing to the thirteen
aged women above. She reached their
door and panting threw it open. They
saw her, and they had seen her ; their
envious or amused faces told her that.
Her own quivered in the condemna-
tory silence; but it was broken by
Panthea, and Panthea always spoke
kindly.

"You have been in society, dear

606

A NEW ENGLAND CRANFORD

Miss Foss. Come in and tell us all
about it."

That overture she met grandly, tell-
ing with contagious mirth just how it
happened, describing photographical-
ly the notables, giving an account of
what went on within the State House
so vividly that they too seemed to see
it, and ending with the honest burst,
"I kept wishing you all were there !"

" Parts of it make me think of the
Old Testament ceremonial," said Mrs.
Atkins.

"My husband used to tell me about
inaugurations. I guess we are glad

we were frozen out from the Home
to get in a day like this, aren't we?"
ruminated the widow aloud, speaking
almost cheerfully.

The others gave assent in their dif-
ferent ways, all but Miss Abalinda, for
whom words were too poor to express
the fulness of her content. It had
been the most splendid day of her
humdrum life — a dream fulfilled.
When she came back to earth, she
went over to Panthea's chair.

"I hope it hasn't been a hard day
for you, calling up so the time of your
accident," she said softly.

A New England Cranford

By Elsie Carmichael

January 15.

AT last I have found Cranford.
To be sure the village is
called Kelmscott, but it
is really Cranford dis-
guised under another name. I have
been here only two days and have
met no one yet, but I expect to find
Miss Mattie, and Miss Pole, and
sleepy Mrs. Jamieson, and all the
other inhabitants of the little town.
When I went for a walk this after-
noon I found myself looking for
Miss Betsey Barker's gray flannel-
clad alderney.

Oh, it is such a deliciously quiet,
restful place — this home of my
great-aunts. Every one at home is
pitying me for going down to a
little country village in midwinter,
6ut for the first time in months I

feel perfectly happy and free as the
wind. They all thought I was on
the verge of nervous prostration ; as
though I would do anything so stupid
and conventional ! I could not
make them believe that all that
ailed me was a mad, mad longing
for the open sky, and pure air, and
simple living. I was sick unto
death of society, of the convention-
alities necessary to town life. I
longed and dreamed of great open
spaces, and wide horizons, and the
wind, and the sky and all the big
things in nature.

I came down here yesterday to
visit my father's aunts, whom I had
not seen since I was a child. I
found a little village clustered about
the green, just like all other New
England villages, but there is a

A NEW ENGLAND CRANFORD

607

charm about the place that is quite
different from that of any other
little town I know. There is an air
of aristocracy about the square
white houses under the wide-
spreading elms, and if the people
are not wealthy, at least the econ-
omy they practise is "elegant" like
that of the original Cranford.

A hill rises 'behind the houses on
the north side of the green and
keeps off the blustering winds, and
I am told the spring comes earlier
in the gardens of the village than
anywhere else for miles around. My
aunts' house is square and white like
most of the others, and the lawn
slopes on the east to a little brook
that runs gurgling and rippling over
its stones down to the river, beyond
the meadows. The old garden with
the box-bordered paths lies on the
sunny southern side, and yesterday
Aunt Mary took me out on the
piazza, and showed me where the
first jonquils and violets grow, and
pointed out the rose garden and the
lilac hedge and all her dearest pos-
sessions, now masked under a pure
white covering of snow. At the far
end of the longest, straightest path
is a rose arbor, and as we stood at
the piazza door and looked down
the path she told me, with lowered
voice and a faint blush, that down
there in the rose arbor my grand-
father asked my grandmother to
marry him. She looked pensively
down the path after she had told
me and was in dreamland for quite
five minutes. I have already learned
that Aunt Mary is the romantic one
of the family.

Yesterday I was so busy un-
packing, and going all over the ram-

bling old house, and talking over
family matters that there was not a
moment's time for any outdoor ex-
ploring, so early this morning, long
before breakfast, when the sun had
just showed its head over the hills, I
crept downstairs all bundled up in
furs, and stole softly out into a very
white, still world. It seemed as if
Nature were holding her breath.
You could almost hear the clouds
float by overhead. My footsteps
crunched and creaked on the hard
frozen snow and I stood still,
frightened at disturbing the quiet.
The only sound was the faint ripple
of the 'brook under the ice. The
snow sparkled in the slanting rays
of the early morning sunlight, and
the shadows on the distant snow-
covered hills were too delicate and
dreamy for any painter to catch.

I felt as though I had begun
again in a new, fresh world. All
the trivial things that had made up
my life seemed to have dropped off
and I was like a child again. Life
was so simple here in this little vil-
lage nestled in the hills, after the
cpmplex turmoil of the world outside.

I wandered about until I was
called in to a delicious breakfast in
the sunny dining-room, with its big
roaring fire, and its cosy round
table, set with the aunts' priceless
china and silver. I was so hungry,
and I never tasted such coffee as 1
drank that morning out of eggshell
cups, and the hot muffins and ome-
let I devoured like a ravenous child.

January 20.

All the inhabitants of Kelmscott
appear to be single women of un-
certain age. I believe that there

608

A NEW ENGLAND CRANFORD

are one or two men, beside the min-
ister, but they seem to keep them-
selves well out of the way. All of
them assert vociferously that it is
such a relief not to have men about ;
men, who smoke and tramp over
one's carpets and talk loudly and
get on one's nerves. They are so
dear and quaint about it all. Well
on the whole I am glad there are no
men ; it's rather a relief. A man
who did not care for the country
and for the simple things I love
would be sadly out of place in this
old maids' paradise.

This afternoon I went up over
the fields to the top of the hill be-
hind the village. There is a road
somewhere, but I love big open
spaces where the wind sweeps and
one feels free. The fields were a
great, undulating, unbroken ex-
panse of purest white, which I
hated to mar with my footprints.
There were lavender lights in the
bare birch grove and far beyond
were great, rolling, blue-white hills,
crowned with black pines. The
shadows were blue and in one place,
where the snow was rippled by the
wind it looked like a reflection of
the sky with white clouds on it. I
felt as free and wild and joyous as
the solitary black crows beating up
against the wind. As I turned and
looked back there was a soft haze
on the distant hills ; it was so peace-
ful, so still.

The sun was very low and stained
the snow pink as it dropped behind
the hills over across the frozen river.
It was so glorious it hurt me. I
felt as though I should choke; I
wanted to throw off some outer gar-
ment. I wonder whether it is not

the free spirit struggling with the
enveloping flesh. I think that death
will be just the shaking one's self free.

January 25.

Already I feel as though I knew
these people very, very well. They
have taken me in so cordially and
seem glad to have a young thing
like me — they insist on looking on
me as a babe, despite my twenty-
four years — come into their quiet
life. They do not consider it quiet,
however, perish the thought ! An
occasional high tea, or a church
sociable, or a missionary box-pack-
ing makes their lives very full and
busy. It is such a relief after the
strenuous life I have been living,
trying to crowd shopping, a lecture,
two or three teas, a dinner and a
dance into one little day. I have
frittered away so many precious
hours on so many different things,
instead of concentrating on one or
two and doing them thoroughly. I
had brought a trunk full of books,
and had planned to read Italian and
German and sociology and a dozen
other things, but so far I have not
opened them. There are so many
interesting places to see and the
study of human nature is more ab-
sorbing than any other, after all,
and I am learning about new phases
of life just now.

In the evening, after my long, busy
days, we gather about the big open
fire in the cosy sitting-room, with
the warm red curtains drawn close,
shutting out the wind, and the
lamps shedding a soft light over
the beautiful old furniture and por-
traits, and then while the dear aunts
knit or sit with folded hands and

A NEW ENGLAND CRANFORD

609

peaceful faces, I read to them,
sometimes from their favorite
Wordsworth, sometimes from Miss
Edgeworth or Jane Austen.

To-day I went to visit Dr.
Briggs, who remembered my father
as a little boy, and who wished to
see his daughter. He is a quaint
old gentleman of the old school,
who looks as though he had just
stepped out of a portrait ; I even
glanced about the room to find the
empty frame. Dressed in the style
of long ago, with his black stock
and long old-fashioned coat, he
greeted me in the most courtly man-
ner. While I was there to my as-
tonishment a book agent appeared
— they always penetrate, where
angels fear to tread. Dr. Briggs in
his most courteous way dismissed
him by telling him that he needed
no more books, because ten years
before he had bought the Encyclo-
paedia Britannica, and that he had
still a few volumes of that unread,
and he thought these would last
until his eyesight gave out. I
thought it was a joke at first, but
afterward Aunt Mary told me that
it was true, he had laboriously
waded all through those volumes
and considered that he had paid all
the attention to the Muses that was
necessary. I believe it would be
better for me if I concentrated on
the encyclopaedia, or perhaps the
dictionary.

January 30.

To-day we heard some very thrill-
ing news; it is the one subject of
conversation. Miss Jemima Hazel-
ton has broken her arm. The grocer
boy came in bursting with im-

portance at being the first to tell us.
Then the Dunnings' cook ran over
the wide lawn that separates the
two houses to talk it over with
Aunt Mary's cook. The wind was
quite taken out of her sails, when
she heard that the grocer boy was
ahead.

Then one after another the
neighbors dropped in to bring us all
the particulars ; how Miss Hazelton
had been going down the cellar
stairs and had slipped and fallen the
whole length — there were fifteen
steps Miss Pendleton told us. She
thought she was carrying a jar of
preserves down to the cellar closet,
but Miss Jennie Piper was sure it
was a pan of cream. She knew it
was cream, because it had com-
pletely ruined Miss Hazelton's
dress; fortunately, however, it was
her oldest alpaca — so lucky it was
not the one she had just bought ; but
then Jemima always was careful of
her clothes and would never have
been going down cellar in her new
alpaca; not but what her cellar was
as clean as her kitchen however,
Jemima always did pride herself on
the way her cellar looked. They
finally got to speaking of Miss
Hazelton in as reminiscent a way as
though she were already dead.

When the excitement had calmed
down a bit, Aunt Agatha begged
me to go and inquire for Miss
Hazelton and take her a jar of pre-
served ginger — ginger was so com-
forting. So in the afternoon I went
down the street, rejoicing in just
being out in the glad sunshine.
Everything was so sparkling and
brilliant, and an intensely blue sky
bent lovingly down, almost touch-

610

A NEW ENGLAND CRANFORD

ing the giant elms. The air was
like wine, and I had difficulty to
keep from skipping like a child. I
made up my mind to come home
cross lots, so I could run and let
out some of my superfluous energy.
I found Miss Hazelton sitting be-
fore her window gazing out over
the snowy fields and hills with a
peaceful, far away look in her eyes.
When I came in she looked up in
her bright cheerful way and except
for the white sling I should never
have dreamed she was in pain.

"Dear Miss Hazelton," I cried,
"I am so sorry about your poor arm.
You are so brave and good about it.
I know I should be the weakest of
cowards if it were I."

"Oh, no, you would not be that,
Constance," she said. "Besides it
is not so bad, my dear. Think how
infinitely worse it would be if it
were my limb." (The ladies in
Kelsmscott are very particular
about that word.) "Then I could
not have moved for weeks and
weeks, and now I can go a'bout, and
shall learn to do a great deal with
one hand."

After we had talked about many
things, she turned back to the win-
dow and sat a moment looking out,
with that same far away, dreamy
look ; then she said in a low tone :

"Constance, do you see that high
snow-covered mountain over there
beyond the lower hills, with the
sunset light on it? I like to pre-
tend that it is the Jungfrau, and
that the cottages on the hillsides
are Swiss chalets. You look sur-
prised, my dear. I sit here often
and dream. You know I have al-
ways longed to see the beautiful

things in the world. As a girl 1
dreamed that some day I should
go to — Europe." She said the word
in a low hushed tone, as though it
were something sacred. "But now
it is too late. There are many
beautiful things all about me,
though, here in our own little vil-
lage; there always are if you look
for them, and I like to pretend. As
a child I used to pretend all sorts
of things, and I have never gotten
over it."

The tears blinded my eyes, as I
went away leaving dear Miss Hazel-
ton pretending. Who knows all the
tragedy that has been going on in
that patient heart? All the longings
for a larger life, for broader hori-
zons. I can imagine how she
wanted to see the whole beautiful
world long ago in her youth, and
how she must have crushed all those
desires, and instead of growing bit-
ter and narrow as so many would,
she has grown sweeter and more
patient and unselfish every day, and
has kept her childlike dreams and
they have brightened her whole life.

February 3.

I have just come home from the
Robertsons. Mr. Robertson is the
minister and he and his wife are
very charming people, who have
travelled much and know the world
and men, and sometimes when I
have a little longing for the world,
the flesh and the devil I go to see
them. When I told them that to-
day they teased me unmercifully
about calling them such horrid
names. Mrs. Robertson and I are
becoming the best of friends, and I
often go over there and read with

A NEW ENGLAND CRANFORD

611

her, and we sew together, and I
play by the hour with Gladys, who
has the honor of being the only
baby in Cranford. I, who adore
babies, would be very lonely with-
out Gladys, who is the dearest, sun-
niest mite that ever smiled and
cooed her way into any one's heart.

Mrs. Robertson told me to-day
that a college friend of her husband,
Mr. Dexter, is coming to spend a
Sunday very soon and she wants me
to help them entertain him. I do
not feel very much interested in
Mr. Dexter/ though they talk about
him a great deal ; a man will be
so out of place in Cranford.

I went home the longest way as
usual, over the fields and hills. The
wind was howling, the snow drift-
ing, and the crows were cawing
harshly, and I was under the spell'
of a wild, brilliantly beautiful day.
The air was so pure and cold and
had swept down from the north
over so many leagues of ice and
snow, that it was filled with the
nameless ecstasy of the Viking-land.
I was no longer Constance Randolph,
living in a New England village,
but a wild, free Norse maiden. My
flesh can hardly contain my spirit
on such a day. I must be out fight-
ing against the wind, flying against
it, like those same strong, broad-
winged crows that are circling
against the cloudless blue sky.

As I plodded along through the
deep snow, feeling too happy and
exhilarated for words, I met old
John Benjamin, a farmer in the
neighborhood, who called out from
his wagon, "Good day, Miss Ran-
dolph. This is dretful healthy
weather, ain't it?"

I nodded back, speechless, as the
wind, sweeping over the meadow,
brought a mist of soft, powdery
snow that enveloped and blinded
me, while the setting sun turned it
to a golden and rose-colored veil.
Then the sun dropped behind the
hills and all around the horizon
floated rose-pink clouds, touched
with gold, while above the sky was
still blue and the meadows were
white, and so was the whole world,
except the black woods. The pines
were bending and swaying and
sighing like the sea, and through
them the western sky was like a
stained window, seen through
cathedral columns, and all the time
the fierce north wind was blowing
me homeward, and I felt wild and
free and loved it all so passionately.

All this evening, however, I have
been suffering from a reaction. I
think I am a little tired perhaps. I
have such a vague, mad longing for
something, I do not know quite
what. I think like Siegfried I begin
to feel the need of a comrade-heart ;
some one with whom I could share
all this joy. How I wish I had
some congenial friend, who would
feel it all and love it all as I do, even
if we never, never spoke of it, if we
had only a silent understanding!
There are some doors in us we must
keep shut to every one. There are
some friends to be sure who are so
much a part of us that we can open
many of them, but the older we
grow the more we lock some doors
to all the world, even our nearest
and dearest are shut out. It seems
to be a very hard thing to find real
sympathy and understanding in this
old world, where we all have to

612

A NEW ENGLAND CRANFORD

stand alone, with Matthew Arnold's
islands, with the "unplumbed, salt,
estranging sea" flowing between us.

February 6.

I went over to the Robertsons
this morning, feeling a little lonely.
They were both out but I found
Gladys in the sitting-room, playing
all by herself in the sun. Her little
tousled head looked as though it
were covered with spun gold, and
she lifted the biggest, bluest, hap-
piest eyes and welcomed me with a
rapturous hug. We had such a
beautiful romp first, and then we
sat down on the rug, before the big
crackling fire and proceeded to
build a castle of blocks.

We had reached the topmost tur-
ret of the castle, when I heard a
step in the hall and thinking it was
Anna Robertson, I called out, with-
out looking up : "Don't you dare
speak or Gladys and I will have a
castle in ruins."

There was such a portentous si-
lence that I glanced up. There in
the doorway stood a big broad-
shouldered man with the merriest
eyes in the world and a charming
smile. I must have been a most
dishevelled looking creature, for
Gladys had tried to pull down my
hair, and had otherwise injured the
immaculate toilet on which I
prided myself.

"Bunkie, Bunkie," she cried, rap-
turously, and ran off with tumbling,
tripping steps to throw herself into
the arms of the strange young man.
I felt forlorn, deserted, and very
much provoked to be caught sitting
there ungracefully on the floor,
building a castle of blocks. But he

came swiftly forward after embrac-
ing Gladys in a hurried way and
helped me up.

"I am Ralph Dexter," he said,
shaking hands. "And you are Miss
Randolph, I am sure, of whom I
have heard so much. You have
been a great comfort to my friends.
It's rather dull here at Kelmscott
for them, I should imagine. That's
one reason I ran down to-day unex-
pectedly. Do you suppose I shall
be very inconvenient?"

He asked it so boyishly and
frankly th*at I liked him at once, and
when Anna came in a few minutes
later we already felt like old
friends.

February 8.

It had been snowing for twenty-
four hours, great, soft flakes that
wrapped us in a white gloom, and
made the library, with its roaring
fire, seem very cosy and secluded.
I loved to watch the storm from the
bay-window. All the harsh outlines
of walls and roofs were softened by
the clinging coverlet. The garden
looked as though some giant sculp-
tor had been at work overnight.
Here and there white statues
gleamed, where tall shrubs were
draped in snow. Even the low box
hedges were turned to marble balus-
trades. Where roads and paths had
been, now there was but one vast
expanse of purest white.

No one stirred out of the close-
shut houses. There is no business
done in Cranford, except at the one
store, put as far out of sight as pos-
sible to make the dear Cranfordites
forget that there is such a sordid
thing in the world as barter. Once

A NEW ENGLAND CRANFORD

613

or twice a milkman in a sleigh
jingled down the street, but the
marks of his runners were soon ob-
literated by the fast-falling snow.

I stayed in the house all the
morning, but when afternoon came I
could endure it no longer. The
wild longing seized me to go out of
doors to breathe the pure, snow-
washed air, to plunge into the soft
banks and break paths for myself
through this undulating sea of
white. The aunts remonstrated
with me mildly, but they have
grown accustomed to my ways, and
watched me put on my jersey and
Eton jacket resignedly.

Then I opened the front door,
against which the snow had drifted
in a great fleecy bank, and ploughed
my way to the gate. The crisp air
and the exercise made the blood
flow faster. I was filled with all the
passion for the winds and open sky,
and the exhilaration that only Na-
ture at her wildest can bring.

Down the street I slowly broke
my path, all oblivious at first that
a head appeared at each window as
I passed. Not until I reached Miss
Piper's did I realize that I was an
object of interest to the dear women
of Kelmscott. Then I was startled
out of my dreaming by her shrill
voice at her open window.

"Constance, Constance Ran-
dolph," she shrieked across the
buried garden. "Who's sick?"

"Nobody," I called back, sur-
prised. "I am just out for a walk."

"For the land sakes," she cried,
consternation in her tone. "Are you
clean out of your mind, child? Go-
ing for a walk in this snow?" I can-
not describe the utter disgust in

her tone. She evidently thought I
was eccentric to the last degree.

"It's glorious," I called back, and
went on my way, conscious now
that I was the cynosure of all eyes,
for as I approached each house I
would see the curtain pulled back,
and the shade raised, and other
members of the family would ap-
pear at other windows, as in
the alarm was spread through the
house.

I had broken my way through the
drifts as far as the end of the village,
and was hesitating which road to
take out into the open country,
when I heard some one coming be-
hind me in a great hurry.

"Oh, Miss Randolph," he called, and
I turned to find Mr. Dexter, looking
most picturesque in high boots and
jersey, and a scarlet toboggan cap
on his dark head. "Good morning,"
he cried, struggling with the clinging
cap. "Are you out for one of your
little strolls?"

"Yes," I called back. "Isn't it
glorious?"

"I have been trying to persuade
Robertson to come for a walk, but
he has some of those old-fashioned
ideas about ploughing through
snow banks that most people have,
so I determined to risk being lost
in a strange country and come
alone. I was mighty glad to see
you. You won't let me get lost, will
you?"

I could not help approving of Mr.
Dexter at once. It was such a
strange and delightful thing to find
some one who would not jeer at my
love for the wildness of the day, or
think I was entirely mad. We went
on like two children, sometimes al-

614

A NEW ENGLAND CRANFORD

most disappearing in the drifts and
scrambling out again, with a jolly
laughing enjoyment of it all. I for-
got I had never seen Mr. Dexter but
once before. We felt like old, old
friends, when he left me at the
house, after planning a snow-shoe-
ing expedition for the next day.

May 10.

I have neglected my diary for
many weeks. I have been far too
busy watching the spring come to
open a book of any kind, for it is
the very first time in all my life that
I have seen the coming of spring.
Think of the Aprils and Mays I
have wasted among brick walls and
pavements, when all this wonderful
miracle is being wrought, out in the
woods and fields.

First there came a vague, intangi-
ble, suggestive freshness in the
wind, the ground grew soft, and I
found pussy willows in sunny spots,
and then one marvellous day 1
heard a bluebird sing, and knew
that spring was really coming.
Gradually she came a little nearer
every day and I found traces of her
footsteps in sheltered corners of the
woods, — arbutus and the shy he-
patica, and bloodroots and anem-
ones. Towards the last of April the
ground was blue-white with hous-
tonia and dandelions starred the
lawn. Aunt Mary's garden has been
a perfect delight from the first fresh
smell of newly turned earth to its
perfection now, with its beds of
tulips and jonquils and hyacinths.

Part of the time Mr. Dexter has
been here, and helped me to enjoy it
more, for it is so nice to have a
comrade, who understands and

loves it all, too, as he does. He
comes now nearly every Sunday to
see the Robertsons. The friendship
between those two men is really
very beautiful. In the winter time
we skated and tobogganed and went
snow-shoeing, and Kelmscott was all
upset by our many mad doings.
Such a thing as a toboggan or a
snow-shoe had never appeared be-
fore in the village, and they were
looked on as curiosities from some
far distant sphere of life, unknown
to this quiet little corner of the
world.

Just now I am up on the hill on
the edge of the woods. I have been
lying on the moss, watching the
clouds and the sun shining through
the delicate new leaves of the oaks,
that are traced like lace against the
sky. The slow clouds float past like
sloops, with sails white in the sun-
light, drifting under a faint breeze
on a blue sea. There are perfumes
of resinous pine and damp moss,
and from the gardens below me
rises the heavy fragrance of wis-
taria, and lilac, and newly mown
grass. The wind flutters the leaves
of my neglected book lying beside
me, and fills me with a wild ecstasy.
It is talking to the trees that are
bending and swaying towards each
other, and I love to listen to it.

Poised on the tiniest of swaying
branches a robin is pouring out his
heart secrets, and a grosbeak flits
about, a bright spot of color. Now,
like a dream, a scarlet tanager drops
on a swaying bough and swings
there against the blue sky.

Oh, why do we live in houses,
when we might always live out un-
der the sky, where life is so simple

A NEW ENGLAND CRANFORD

615

and all the conventionalities and
elaborate machinery of living are
forgotten ?

May 14.

I have made up my mind to buy
a house in Cranford, where I can
come when the life in the city be-
comes more than I can bear. I
think it would be selfish to spend
all my life out close to nature; 1
must put my time and money to
some good use in helping along the
world a 'bit, but when one of my
uncontrollable longings comes to
feel the grass under my feet and the
blue sky over my head, then I can
slip away to this restful country,
and like Antaeus become renewed
by coming in close contact with
nature.

I have found such a charming
abandoned farm — a wide hospitable
house set back from the road, where
the village street wanders out into
the country. Two giant elms stand
guard at the gate and beyond are
horse-chestnuts, and a climbing rose
riots over the wide veranda. A
flagged walk between box hedges
leads to the front door, where a fan
light and a brass knocker complete
my enchantment.

I took Ralph Dexter to-day to ex-
plore my abandoned farm. We
walked up the uneven, sunken stone
path, while the horse-chestnut trees
dropped their heavily scented blos-
soms on our shoulders. There was
a front door bell which jangled dis-
consolately through the empty
house; I only rang it to startle the
ghosts that I am sure wander
through the wide rooms.

"When I own the house," I said,

"I shall take this away at once.
Think of pulling- a commonplace
door-bell, when you can use a
cherub's head as a knocker."

We walked down the piazza,
pushed aside the overhanging
bushes that inquisitively crowded
up to the very rail and then went
around the house, along another lit-
tle stone-paved walk through the
shrubbery. The air was heavy with
all sorts of old-fashioned scents
from the garden with its stiff little
box hedges and hardy flowers
blossoming at their own sweet
will. Beyond the garden were cool
woods of pine and oak and at one
side the meadows sloped to the
river.

"I shall leave it all just as it is,"
I said half to myself. "Just let the
flowers riot away all they want. I
won't have a gardener digging them
up and planting them in stiff rows.
The dear things shall be just as free
and happy as I shall. We will play
in the sunshine together — the flow-
ers and I." I had forgotten all
about Ralph Dexter and I knelt down
on the grassy path and threw my
arms around a dear lilac bush and
buried my face in its fragrance.
Then I remembered him and sprang
up. He was looking at me in such
a strange way that I felt a little
embarrassed. I did not know
quite why, because he is always so
good about understanding my er-
ratic ways. He is one of the few
people before whom I can be my
real true self — not the conventional
Miss Randolph that the world
knows.

He turned away without saying
anything and we walked back silent-

616

A NEW ENGLAND CRANFORD

ly. He is one of those rare people
with whom you can be silent.

May 16.

I was in one of my wild, lonely
moods, when I felt that there was
no one in all the wide world who
really knew or understood me — the
real, true Constance. After tea I
climbed the hill behind the village
to see the sun set. I had to get
away from people into the great
silence and solitude of the hill-top.
I was feeling rebellious and heart-
sick. Life seemed so hard to under-
stand. I had not found exactly
what I was put into the world for.

I sat down on the old stone wall
at the top of the hill and looked
down at the valley below me. An
apple orchard sloped down the hill,
and over the pink and white bower
I could see the river winding
through the valley like a ribbon«
The square church tower of Kelms-
cott rose from a cluster of trees,
and here and there the mossy roofs
of the quaint old houses of the vil-
lage peeped out under the great pro-
tecting elms, that make the little
town famous. There were fresh
perfumes rising from the hayfields,
and the apple blossoms floated down
around me and filled the air with
penetrating sweetness. The birds
were singing their evening songs,
and there was a great hush and
peace over the whole fresh dewy
world.

Over in the west the clouds hung
in great masses and changed from

blue to heliotrope and then, as I
watched, they deepened and glowed
as though reflecting some great fire
that I could not see. The sky be-
tween the clouds was pale green,
and large and silvery the crescent
moon shone through the misty rose-
color. I forgot the world — it was
heavenly.

In the midst of my rapture, as
I sat motionless, spellbound, I
heard a step near by and saw Ralph
Dexter coming. For a moment I
was angry; I wanted to be alone.
I knew that if he broke the silence
I should hate him. Then I looked
back at the sky, waiting. I felt as
though my friendship for him hung
in the balance. He came up quietly
and stood with bared head beside
the wall. I stole a glance at him,
and he was gazing off into the west
with a solemn look on his face, as
though he were in a holy place.

From gold and orange to rose
and scarlet the sky changed ; deeper
and deeper it glowed until the heart
could not contain the pain of the
beauty of it. Then on a sudden the
fire went out, and cold and blue
hung the masses of heavy clouds
and I woke up to find myself sit-
ting on a tumble-down stone wall,
with Ralph Dexter standing beside
me. I gave a long sigh and turned
to him, although I knew my eyes were
full of tears, but for some strange
reason I did not mind. He reached
out his hand and laid it for a
moment on mine on the hard granite
wall. Then in the twilight we
silently wandered down the hill.

Ferryland, where Lord Baltimore First Established his Colony

The First American Colony

By P. T. McGrath

NEWFOUNDLAND enjoys
not alone the distinction
of being the oldest over-
seas possession of the
British Crown, but also that of be-
ing the first American colony — the
initial settlement of the English
people in the New World. United
States readers will find it hard to
credit that the nursery of their peer-
less nation was the rocky coast of
the "new isle," that here were first
established those colonies and plan-
tations which later spread from
Massachusetts to the Carolinas, and
that it was mainly the wealth of the
fishing banks which tempted Pil-
grims and Puritans, Cavaliers and
Roundheads, to cross the stormy
ocean and root themselves on un-

familiar soil. But, amazing though
this may seem, the fact still re-
mains that a century before the
Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plym-
outh Rock, this Terra Nova, "ye
new founde lande," was the com-
mon resort of the daring Devon-
shire voyagers — half pirate, half
merchant — who braved the dangers
of the unknown west, to garner the
harvest from the waters which wash
the rugged shores of the land of cod.
And history also proves that from
here the plantations were carried
to the mainland beyond ; from here
were obtained the ideas which
served to successfully found the
little seaboard settlements in Vir-
ginia and elsewhere ; from here were
acquired the methods which en-

617

A Planter's Station

abled the development of these
plantations to outreach the wildest
imaginings of the men who estab-
lished them.

The word "planter" is still cur-
rent in the insular vocabulary, and
the "supplying system" still pre-
vails, the solitary links which con-
nect us with those historic bygone
days. A "planter," in Newfound-
land parlance, is a fish trader in a
large way of business — the middle-
man between the merchant who
ships the cod to market and the
fisher who hauls it from the water.
"Plantations" are yet interwoven
with local tradition, and shown on
the ancient maps and charts. The
tenure of some has never been
broken; the names and locations of
others are perpetuated in the exist-
ing fishing hamlets which dot the
shore line. The "supplying sys-
618

tern" is that which prevailed so
largely in the southern states be-
fore the Civil War and which still
obtains to a lesser degree — the mer-
chants and planters "supply" the
masses at the opening of the spring
with all the essentials necessary for
their adequate prosecution of the
staple industry, and when the season
ends take over their produce against
the advances they had received six
months before. The "merchants"
are the descendants of the early
"merchant adventurers" who ex-
ploited the newly founded colony.
Like their forefathers, they still im-
port practically all that the colonists
eat and wear and use, and export all
the fish that they catch. Twenty of
these merchants monopolize the
trade of the island to-day as com-
pletely as their forefathers did two
or three centuries ago, or as the

THE FIRST AMERICAN COLONY

619

''merchants" of pre-Revolutionary
days controlled the imports and ex-
ports of the continental colonies.

Fascinating as any romance is the
story of the early settlement of
Newfoundland, and of its subse-
quent connection with the Ameri-
can colonies. From 1516, when the
fishing records open, until 1620,
when the Pilgrims occupied Plym-
outh, the "new isle" was the sole
foothold of the English in the west-
ern hemisphere, the one spot of
ground they claimed outside the
British kingdom. In this lonely
island our common tongue was first
spoken amid cisatlantic surround-
ings, the English flag first floated
above an alien province, the Eng-
lish race first set itself to the task

of subduing the wilderness. The
lessons of empire were learned on
its shores, the viking spirit was
nurtured by its breezes, the mastery
of the seas was acquired by battling
with its billows, the vast colonial
territories which have since girdled
the globe had their origin in the few
fishing settlements or plantations,
established around its stormy sea-
board. The genesis of the imperial-
ism of later days, the instinct of
expansion as we now see it, took
shape in this solitary rock amid the
wide Atlantic.

Yet, sad to say, her fate has been
that of many other pioneers of the
world's progress. She was the
nursery of the colonial conception;
the precursor of the American Re-

Fishing Cove

620

THE FIRST AMERICAN COLONY

public, the Canadian Dominion, the
Australian Commonwealth, and of
the South African Federacy that is
to be, not to speak of the minor ter-
ritories "beyond the seas" where
the civilizing genius of the Anglo-
Saxon race finds an outlet for its
energies. But the stern and rugged
climate and characteristics of New-
foundland prejudiced her when
fairer fields of fortune were opened
up. Until sixty or seventy years
ago there was a steady stream of
immigration to the island, but lat-
terly the tide has passed her by ; the
American prairies and Canadian
farmsteads have drawn the current
to themselves, and Newfoundland,
which had virtually made an ancient
history for herself before the thir-
teen colonies threw off the yoke of
George III, sits isolated and for-
lorn to-day with a bare fringe of
coast line peopled and an interior
practically unknown — just as she
was three centuries ago.

In 1492 Columbus made his first
great voyage of discovery. Five
years later John Cabot sailed from
Bristol, being equipped for a cruise
of exploration by some "venturers''
of that port, and on this voyage he
discovered Newfoundland. He re-
turned to tell them of its teeming
fisheries, and they speedily despatched
vessels to follow him and harvest
this ocean wealth. The Bretons,
Basques, Biscayans and others also
voyaged there, but from the very
outset the English, enforced their
supremacy over all the fleets that
came. As early as 1523 Captain
Cook, the famous navigator, was
surveying its coast, and he captured

in that year a French ship of Rouen,
returning home from the fishery.
Hawkins, the explorer and free-
booter, visited the island in 1565,
and Sir Francis Drake also har-
bored in St. John's on his expedition
to Nombre de Dios. Other equally
famous worthies of that age were
also to be found in its waters, and
these freebooters preyed so much
on French and Spanish fishery com-
merce that these nations had to
send out and bring back their
fisher-boats under convoy.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in 1583, on
his second voyage to St. John's, for-
mally annexed the island for Queen
Elizabeth. His narrative tells how
he was received by the English,
French, Spanish and Portuguese
vessels in the port, and how he was
hospitably entertained by the Eng-
lish merchants and planters at
their summer garden. Just think of
a "summer garden" in Newfound-
land thirty years before the Dutch
occupied New York ! It was on his
return home from this voyage that
Gilbert was lost, in the little Squir-
rel, when he declared, "We are as
near heaven by sea as by land."
His half-brother, Sir Walter Ra-
leigh, now obtained a grant for a
large plantation near St. John's and
partly settled it. But afterwards he
centred all his interests in the col-
ony which he founded at Roanoke,
in Virginia. Robert Cecil, Lord
Baltimore, also established a plan-
tation at Verulam (now Ferryland),
forty miles from St. John's, where
traces of his occupation are still to
be seen. He, too, transferred his
settlers to his plantation on the

The Giant's Cave, near Bonavista

621

Placentia, former French Capital of Newfoundland

Chesapeake, which he named Mary-
land, and where the city of Balti-
more perpetuates his memory to
this day. Lord Bacon and other
eminent Englishmen of the period
identified themselves with the colo-
nizing of an island whose fisheries,
Raleigh declared, "were the main-
stay of the West of England," and
when the Spaniards, in retaliation
for the wrongs done their ships,
threatened to cut off the Devon
fleet as it returned in the autumn
after the close of the fishery, he said
this was the greatest calamity which
could befall the Kingdom. For
these were stirring times for Eng-
land on the seas, and here she was
laying the foundation of her naval
greatness. The eastern seaboard
of the new isle had several colonies,
hundreds of stanch crafts rode in its
ports every summer, and thousands of
quintals of cod were shipped to every
country in western Europe, while yet

622

the Indians lighted their campfires
along the Massachusetts shore. The
English fishing fleet alone numbered
350 ships in 1603, and their catch
for that year was estimated as be-
ing worth one hundred thousand
pounds sterling, a sum equal to two
million dollars at the present day.
Queen Elizabeth established a
"Protestant Lent," enacting that
throughout England fish should be
eaten every Wednesday and Satur-
day; rations of it were supplied to
the soldiers in their campaigns ; cod
came to be esteemed a great luxury
and fetched goodly prices in Eng-
land, Ireland, the Channel Islands
and France; and to this very day
many of these connections are
maintained and regular sales ef-
fected, precisely as they were three
hundred years ago.

In 1620 came the voyage of the
Mayflozver and the founding of a
colony on the mainland. After the

Landing Codfish at St. John's, N. F.

Plymouth settlement was estab-
lished the connection between "Ter-
ranova" and Massachusetts became
specially close. The Pilgrim colo-
nists themselves embarked in the
fishery. Cape Cod is an eloquent
proof of the vocations of those who
named it, and the "sacred codfish"
even now hangs in the legislative
chamber in Boston in testimony of
what an important place that indus-
try had in the building up of that
region. The Massachusetts fishery
to this day is one of the greatest in
America, and there is aS close an
intercourse with Newfoundland as
there was at any time in the past.
She was prompt to help the May-
iiozver settlers ; she sent them expert
codmen three years after they
landed, and two years later pur-
chased their first cargo of the fish.
Being one hundred years their
senior, she may be said to have been
the guardian of the New Engend-

ers, she trained them, bought from
them and helped materially to build
up their trade. In the same way,
when the Dutch projected a whale
fishery off New York, it was from
Newfoundland they obtained the
skilled boatmen who carried on the
work, and this island came in time
to be regarded as the halfway-
house between England and her
North American colonies, where
shipping harbored when eastward
or westward bound. And when, in
the fulness of occasion, the Ameri-
can patriots proclaimed their inde-
pendence, hundreds of Newfound-
land volunteers left their homes to
join them, being enclosed in fish
casks to escape the searching in-
quiries which the British were then
making.

When the Cromwellian rule in
England overturned the Stuart
bureaucracy and the rule of titled
favorites, a complete change in the

623

624

THE FIRST AMERICAN COLONY

administrative methods applied to
Newfoundland took place. The
grants to noted cavaliers were can-
celled and the "venturers," or mer-
chants, acquired undisputed sway.
These men, the prototypes of the
East Indian Company, the Hudson
Bay Company, and more recently,
the South African Company, first
put into practice the policy of pro-
moting England's material progress
by independent trading ventures.
They formed companies and se-
cured the most eligible harbors, un-
til they acquired a virtual monopoly
of the entire seaboard, and gathered
the whole control of the fishing into
their own hands. Concurrent with
this they devised a plan of discour-
aging and eventually preventing
any permanent settlement there, so
that the old-time emigration made
its way ♦ to the American main-
land. The venturers never regarded
Newfoundland as better than a
mere fishing station to be utilized
during the summer months and not
otherwise. The idea of peopling it
was most repugnant to them, be-
cause it was only by keeping the
magnificent fisheries in their own
hands that they could extract the
largest profits therefrom. The
enactments of which they procured
the passage were barbarous. It was
illegal for a man to winter on the
island or to build a permanent
house there. If he did he could be
imprisoned and his erection de-
stroyed. Every shipmaster had to
bring back in the fall, or satisfac-
torily account for, each man he took
out in the spring, under penalty of
fine and imprisonment. All fishery

requisites, except salt, had to be
procured in England, and it was a
capital offence to bring a woman to
the island. There was no regularly
constituted form of government, no
judiciary or code of laws. Justice,
so called, was dispensed by "fishing
admirals." In British history there
is surely nothing so extraordinary
as this makeshift expedient of rul-
ing a colony from the quarter-deck
of a fishing schooner. The law ran
that the captain of the first vessel
arriving in a harbor became admiral
for the season, the second vice-
admiral, and the third rear-admiral.
The sort of justice these rough,
ignorant seamen administered in the
interests of their masters, the ven-
turers, can easily be imagined ; yet
their regime endured for 150 years-.

In the days of their waning power
a war ship captain found one of them
presiding in a case in which he was
himself concerned.

"How dare you, sir, attempt to
give a decision in your own favor?"
demanded the irate naval officer.

"Who has a better right to do it?"
replied the fishing admiral, in no
way abashed.

These "admirals" adjusted all
cases arising out of the fisheries,
and until the close of the eighteenth
century, when the naval command-
ers were endowed with superior au-
thority, there was no appeal from
their decisions. They were special-
ly zealous in preventing settlement
of the coast; they harried the run-
away fisher- folk, burnt their huts
and destroyed their few effects.
This in many cases compelled the
victims to surrender, or remove in

Drying Cod, Harbor of St. John's, N. F.

friendly crafts to New England, for
the venturers controlled the coast
and the interior was impossible, be-
tween the Boethik aborigines and
the difficulty of obtaining suste-
nance. But some settlers defied op-
pression and retired into the fast-
nesses, returning in the fall to apply
torch and axe to the fish houses of
their prosecutors. As the years
passed it was seen that fire and
sword and persecution alike were
powerless to stop the residential
movement, and later enactments, if
equally oppressive, recognized this
fact. They forbade settlement with-
in six miles of the coast; they re-
quired offenders to be tried in Eng-
land; they created "surrogates," or
land justices, to play the same part
among the "landmen" as the "ad-
mirals" did among the seafarers, and
Charles II signed an edict in 1665
for the deporting of all the settlers
to America.

This brutal order was, it is true,
not enforced, because of its diffi-
culty, but it was the means of in-
fluencing hundreds to migrate to
New England, fearing forcible ex-
pulsion.

These penal laws continued to
exist, even down to modern days, for
it was not until 1820 that the last
of them was repealed, which obliged
a resident to obtain a license from
the governor before he could build
a house. By some strange and per-
verse dispensation, England pursued
a similar policy towards her oldest
colony in other respects. She treated
her as a veritable Cinderella, one
who was, as Lord Salisbury recently
put it, "the spot of historic misfor-
tune." For three centuries New-
foundland's history has been one of
bloodshed and oppression, of neg-
lect, if not cruelty, at the hands of
the mother country. England has
been anything but kind or consid-

625

626

THE FIRST AMERICAN COLONY

Sorting Codfish

erate in her treatment of the prov-
ince, and a grim reckoning is now
being enacted. One-third of the
coast line of Newfoundland was
ceded to France for fishery purposes
and forms the basis of the famous
"French Shore Question," which is
such a thorn in England's side to-
day. The Catholic religion was pro-
scribed in Newfoundland until a
hundred years ago. The first school
was started only in 1800, the first
road (eighteen miles long) in 181 1,

Swayed Down, to Paint

the first white man crossed the
island in 1843, there was not a mile
of railroad built until 1882, the elec-
tric light did not come until 1890,
and although the colony is the senior
in point of age, it is by far the
youngest in point of awakening to
progress and development. For
when British statesmen were en-
dowing a college in the neighboring
province of Nova Scotia, it was a
penal offence to plant a potato in
Newfoundland. The evil effects of
these cruel enactments and no less
pernicious neglects are felt down to
the present time. There is not to-
day a settlement in the island three
miles from the sea ; the whole vast
interior — as large as the state of
New York — is practically unex-
plored; while the entire population
of 220,000 beings is scattered in al-
most innumerable coves and creeks
around a coast line 3,000 miles in ex-
tent. The island is unique in this,
that it has no internal settlement,
though the railway line recently built
and bisecting the interior is ex-
pected to promote settlement as the
years go by.

To-day, as in olden time, the
island is best known for its fogs,
dogs, bogs and codfish ; and the
large share it had in the founding of
the American nation is a forgotten
tale of a vanished past. The growth
of the colony was desperately slow.
The early settlers endured incredi-
ble hardships, and at the opening of
the last century the total population
was less than 20,000. The Irish re-
bellion of 1798 forced thousands of
young men to flee that country, and
a goodly number of them came to

THE FIRST AMERICAN COLONY

(>27

Newfoundland. As most of them
were unmarried and there were com-
paratively few marriageable females
in the island to meet this demand,
eligible women were promptly be-
spoke. There is an authentic case
of a widow being approached with
an offer she had to decline, as she
had the previous night accepted the
proposal of another swain who was
attending the "wake" of her. deceased
husband. Eventually, however, this
disproportion of the sexes adjusted

Entering the Narrows

itself, the settlements grew more
numerous and the people enfibred
themselves with their surroundings,
their descendants, in most cases, oc-
cupying the same harbors to-day.
The visitor, as he cruises past the
rugged shore and sees the neat white
houses perched among the cliffs, and
the hardy fishermen in the offing,
tossing about in their frail boats as
they haul their lines and nets, must
marvel at the courage and resolu-
tion required to maintain an exist-
ence there; but no nobler, honester
or more hospitable people exists
than these simple coast folk.. They
are industrious, adventurous, com-
petent seamen, who cannot be sur-

Hauling the Nets

passed ; quick-witted, nimble-handed
and resourceful to a degree almost
beyond belief.

The fame of the island's unrivalled
codfishery is world-wide. This is
the staple industry. The catching,
curing and exporting of cod repre-
sent the principal monetary labor.
Men, women and children are em-
ployed in it, the former doing the
fishing itself, while the women and
children salt and dry the catch.
Upon this fishery the prosperity of
the whole people is indubitably
based, and it is as sensitive a trade

A Frequent Menace

628

THE FIRST AMERICAN COLONY

barometer as is the wheat crop to
the western farmer. Here it may
be well to explain that in Newfound-
land, when you say "fish" you mean
"cod." Other minor fisheries there
are — for salmon, herring, lobster,
etc. — but these are always special-
ized when meant, and the general
term "fishery" stands for the cod-
fishery. The colonial Supreme Court
has so decided, in an important
written judgment, and the usage of
four centuries has an even more
binding effect than a judicial pro-
nouncement. The stranger in the
island finds this very curious; a
visitor at a local hotel last summer
seeing "salmon" on the menu, ob-
served "fish" to the waitress, and on
inquiring the cause of her non-
return, after a long delay, was sur-
prised to learn that she was en-
deavoring to procure some "fish"
(cod) for him.

The codfish frequent the coast in
unnumbered millions and are to be
found there the whole year round,
affording employment for the sturdy
settlers who ply this perilous voca-
tion. But the main industry which
occupies the annual energies of the
great bulk of the operative popula-
tion lasts from April to October,
the coast line being blocked with ice
during the winter, except on the
south. Since the dawn of the is-
land's history this pursuit has been
carried on uninterruptedly, and gen-
erations of codmen have come and
gone, while the growth of the indus-
try has been co-equal with the in-
crease in population and spread of
settlement. In the olden times men
were as venturesome and as eager

for pelf as the men of the present
day, and their ships, gear and out-
fits were much ruder and less satis-
factory than those now in use. But
they did not fish so early in the
spring or so late in the fall, nor did
they venture far from land, as is now
done, so that the fishery is probably
more dangerous than ever to-day.

But the fish must be had if the
people are to live. Cod is the uni-
versal medium of business, the bul-
wark underlying every form of com-
mercial endeavor. You see it every-
where, hear of it in every conversa-
tion, read of it in the papers, smell
its pungent odor on all sides. Even
in St. John's, the capital and only
town in the island, the water front is
occupied by stores filled with cod,
the wharves hold scores of vessels
loading or transferring the fish ; the
coves, roof-tops, hillsides and other
places with a strong sunlight are
covered every fine day with the flat,
gleaming slabs of cod, salt-white in
the glare. -The fishery meets the
needs and insures the prosperity of
all classes. The census shows that
out of a total population of 220,000
last year, 80,000 were directly en-
gaged in this pursuit, while as many
more find a livelihood in the sub-
sidiary occupations connected with
it. The ubiquitous cod liquidates
all obligations, for in the remoter
hamlets the people rarely see a coin
or bank note, and fish can be trans-
muted into every commodity they
require. It pays the clergyman his
tithes, the doctor his fees and the
schoolmaster his stipend. A quintal
(112 pounds) of cod usually pur-
chases a barrel of flour; it takes

Government House, St. John's, occupying the Site where Sir Humphrey Gilbert
Announced his Annexation of the Island

three quintals to obtain a butt of
pork or a chest of tea, ten quintals
will provide a fishing net, and so
on through the whole list of essen-
tials to existence.

The legislation of the colony for
centuries has dealt with the fishery ;
the politician addresses his appeals
to "the fishermen of Newfoundland,"
and a policy of "developing our fish-
eries" is always an effective vote-
getter. Stealing cod is an offence
more severely punished than embez-
zlement; deserting from the fishery
entails six months' imprisonment;
improper disposal of the catch
against the supplier's interest carries
a two years' sentence. F.ormerly
the fishers were hired as "winter
men" and "summer men." The lat-

ter merely shipped for one season
and received a third of his catch.
The other signed for "two summers
and a winter," the special remunera-
tion for the snow-term being "five
pounds ($25) and a pair of boots."
Nowadays the engagements are all
made for six months, from May I
to October 31, and the codmen,
known as "sharemen," because they
get a one-third share of the voyage,
joyously celebrate "settling day,"
when they are paid off with a goodly
assortment of bags and barrels of
food and requisites, to be conveyed
home for use during the long and
unproductive winter season.

The whole population is of Eng-
lish and Irish stock, with very small
blending of Scotch. The last of the

629

630

THE FIRST AMERICAN COLONY

aborigines perished about eighty
years since, and there are practically
no settlers of other nationality. The
coast folk are hard working and
courageous, their disregard for dan-
ger being the characteristic of the
race from which they sprung. Born
within sight and sound of the sea,
they are adepts in all the arts and
operations of their maritime pursuit.
The boys usually go out when
twelve years old and fish with the
men. At twenty the lads are as
active and expert seamen as the
world can produce. Lack of educa-
tion is their greatest drawback.
The children rarely get beyond the
rudimentary stages, for when they
grow old enough to be of use in the
fisheries they can only go to school
in winter; while in the smallest ham-
lets there are no schools at all. But
this want of learning does not mili-
tate against them so seriously in this
isolated region as it would in the
great world abroad, and some of the
most successful fish killers are men
who cannot read or write.

Some amusing stories are told of
illiterate shopkeepers, even in very
recent days. One of these kept his
accounts 'by the simple process of
devoting a page in a copybook to
each family in the harbor. On this
he scrawled hieroglyphics with pen-
cil, designed to represent the articles
purchased. Towards Christmas each
year he would have the schoolmas-
ter make out these accounts from
his dictation, and bills would be
formally presented to the debtors.
One of these found himself charged
with a cheese and went to the shop-
man to remonstrate.

"Mr. H ," he said, "there is a

mistake in my account. We never
had a cheese in our house, as you
ought to know yourself."

"That's true, John, but didn't you
have something round?" (consulting
his book).

"Round? The only thing round I
ever had from you was a grind-
stone."

"That was it, John. I forgot to
mark the hole in the middle."

He had drawn a circle to represent
the grindstone, and forgetting to
"mark the hole," concluded later
that it stood for a cheese.

The fishermen go into the forests,
cut the timber for their vessels and
float it down the rivers, build the
crafts, rig and sail them; kill
loads of fish to freight them, cure
these draughts and convey them to
market; sail the vessels to Labrador,
the Great Banks, the Maritime
Provinces and to foreign ports, and
sometimes, as a waggish legislator
once observed, lose their vessels, to
the disgust of the insurance com-
panies. The story is authentic of
one shipowner, who being wired by
the captain of one of his vessels that
had gone ashore, promptly cabled
back this unique direction : "Take no
unlawful means to get her off." An-
other equally remarkable communi-
cation was that received only a few
years ago from the skipper of a ves-
sel, which had come to misfortune
by his agent in St. John's : "Emmeline
ashore Blackhead. Likely total loss.
Try arid insure her."

The merits of the men as sailors
have won the attention of the British
Admiralty, and the Royal Naval Re-

THE FIRST AMERICAN COLONY

631

serve has been extended to the island
and several hundred volunteers en-
rolled, this being the only colony of the
empire so distinguished; and so capa-
ble have the men of two contingents,
taken for training cruises in the
war ship Charybdis, proved them-
selves, that they have beaten the
English recruits in learning the ele-
mentary work, and outclassed the
regular "jackies" in steering, boat
sailing, rowing and other features,
which have been the ordinary occu-
pation of the islanders since boy-
hood. Tfce dreary, lonesome, iso-
lated existence of a winter in the
coast hamlets has made the young
men welcome this reserve move-
ment, the more so as the Admiralty
has arranged to have the training
cruise made every winter and the
West Indies the location, so that
there is no interference with legiti-
mate industry, and the reservists at
the same time enjoy the advantages
of an agreeable diversion. There
are thousands of Newfoundlanders
also engaged in the New England
fisheries to-day, the connection
being as close and the friendship as-
keen between them as it was be-
tween their forefathers three hun-
dred years ago.

Stern and dreary though the life
is, it has certain compensations.
The people combine land culture to
a limited extent with their primary
occupation. They have free land,
they build their own houses and
therefore pay no rents; they enjoy
unrestricted access to the forests
without fee or charge; they hunt
and trap birds and caribou for food,
and by these means they greatly

lessen the burdens which they must
otherwise meet. They pay no taxes
except those which, as import du-
ties, are incorporated in the price of
such articles of foreign growth or
manufacture as they choose to buy.
They subsist on fish and a few sta-
ple articles of diet ; sugar, milk and
butter are luxuries, and fresh meat,
except of deer or hares, is rarely
enjoyed. They are simple and fru-
gal in their habits and their wants
are few. But they thrive all the
more for this and their healthful
outdoor exercises. All are strong
and ruddy, bearing the glow of an
active and vigorous life in their
cheeks.

The great thing is that they love
their calling, and though toil and
tribulation are their portion, they
bravely face its discomforts, and are
happier, probably, in their unsophis-
ticated way, than their more ag-
gressive and striving fellows in
larger communities. Daily they face
the storm and stress of the ocean,
without flinching or demur, eager to
secure the wherewithal to feed wife
and family, and meeting fog and
gale, ice and blizzard, with the same
sublime unconcern. They are un-
tainted with modern selfishness; if
bad fisheries prevail the least poor
will help their more destitute neigh-
bors, until all are reduced to a com-
mon level of misery. In good times
they will give generously to those
in distress or to charitable objects,
and their churches and allied insti-
tutions are surprisingly fine for a
people whose average earnings for a
family do not exceed $300 a year.
The fisher-folk are more devoted ad-

632

THE FIRST AMERICAN COLONY

herents to their religion than most
people in this matter-of-fact age. I
have known of Catholic fishermen
sailing schooners over one hundred
miles in the teeth of a gale to bring
a priest to administer the last sacra-
ments to a dying comrade.

The Newfoundland fisherman's
highest ambition in life is to be the
skipper, and, if possible, owner of
his schooner, which is to him home,
castle, warehouse and workshop all
in one. No mortal can be prouder
of material advancement than is the
Newfoundlander who becomes a
"schooner holder." In this craft he
can carry on the fishery, freight
goods to and from St. John's, con-
vey herring to Nova Scotia and
produce back to his home and utilize
her for every need that besets a man
living by the sea, for, as the expe-
rience of hundreds of years attests,
it pays the settlers better to catch
fish than grow foodstuffs or venture
into manufacturing. Even if the
fisher-folk do not always own
their crafts wholly, they do so in
part, and in a corporate capacity
own all the vessels and plants engaged
in the fishery all around the island ;
so that the men are in perpetual
possession of all the essentials of life
and living. For this reason they
are, in connection with the other
natural advantages of their situa-
tion, among the most independent
class of workers in the world. Thus
independent, in the possession of
their homes, gardens, schooners and
nets, these seafarers are individually
no less independent. Deprive one
of them of a schooner to-morrow
and he would simply revert to the

use of a skiff and lines, with which he
would secure a fare of cod for the
season sufficient to satisfy his fam-
ily's wants, if not to do better. But
as every man aims at having a craft
of his own, all energies are directed
thereto, and thus it happens that,
as a rule, he is never in possession
of accumulated property of any
other description. The property of
an inalienable kind which he has in-
cludes all the essentials of his regu-
lar usual vocation; and as with
these he is content, it is difficult to
say how the storms of adversity, as
far as material interests are con-
cerned, can much affect him. The
very fact that his habits are frugal
and wants few invests him with a
position of almost absolute security,
from his personal standpoint. Then
as to his distinctive industry and
the fruits of it, these also, to a large
extent, are self-insuring. Speaking
generally, the Newfoundland fishery
insures itself.

It is so varied, is spread over such
a large extent of coast, and is prose-
cuted under such a diversity of con-
ditions, that the fishermen as a class
must encounter a very phenomenal
year indeed in its misfortunes to
deprive them of an average sea har-
vest. The money value of the crop
of codfish and its varied products
amounts to> about $6,000,000 an-
nually. With this, and a yield of
about $2,500,000 a year from the
other fisheries, the minerals, the
timber and the minor products, the
colony has maintained a very cred-
itable standard of prosperity. She
has built a ten-million dollar railway
through the interior, provided an ef-

PARTING

633

ficient autonomous administration
in all its branches — legislative and
executive — and without the aid of
any immigration whatever has

shown a higher centesimal increase
of population the past ten years
than the neighboring Dominion of
Canada.

Parting

By Charles Hanson Towne

LEAVE me some fragment of your love,
Some remnant of our bliss,
That I may drink the joy thereof
Through days more bleak than this.

When Summer fares forth on the wind,

Do all her blossoms go?
Nay! some white flower she leaves behind,

To still the Autumn's woe;

And all her dear remembered grace

Lives on because of this;
So of our love leave me one trace, —

One last and deathless kiss!

A New Englander in China

By Fred A. Gannon

OF General Frederick Town-
send Ward, a New Eng-
lander, the hero-worship-
ping American public
knows very little, although he was
idolized by the Chinese. Born, a
Puritan, in Salem, Massachusetts,
December 29, 1831, he died, a man-
darin and admiral-general of China,
at Xingo Po, October 23, 1862, of
wounds received in battle.

Ward's boyhood ambition was to
go to West Point, and while it was
not fulfilled, fortune, which guided
him capriciously, trained him in the
school of warfare : the practical. He
fought with the French in the
Crimea and with Garabaldi in
South America, joined the Walker
filibusters in Nicaragua, and plotted
for land grants in Sonora. Return-
ing to New York, the peaceful occu-
pation of a ship broker, which he
attempted, did not suit his daring
spirit, and he crossed the continent
on horseback, alone, and shipped at
San Francisco for China.

He arrived in Shanghai in the fall
of 1859, when the imperial govern-
ment, powerless to oppose the Tae
Ping rebels, hordes of whom were
devastating the country and slaugh-
tering the people, was being forced
to its knees by the European allies.
In this war-racked country, antipo-
dal from the scene of his early
struggle, the adventurous New
634

Englander found the reward which
fortune ever holds for the brave.
The Shanghai merchants, through
Tae Kee, the banker, offered $200,-
000 reward to any one who would
and could protect their city. Ward,
who thus arrived on the scene at the
very nick of time, raised a company
of dare-devils, and beat the rebels in
a bloody battle at Sang Keang. On
this city, which was surrounded by a
massive wall, he made two attacks.
After breaking open the outer
gates by artillery fire, he blew up
the inner ones by piling gunpowder
against them, placing himself under
a perfect hailstorm of bullets, and
stormed the stronghold, defended by
four thousand fanatics. So fierce
was the struggle that of Ward's
500 men, only 128 survived and but
twenty-seven of these escaped un-
wounded. This was the first great
victory of Ward's life, although
afterward he led similar forlorn
hopes as recklessly.

The wonderful success of the
Yankee aroused the envy and fear
of the English. They declared him
a dangerous freebooter, and ar-
rested him upon a flimsy pretext.
He claimed that he was a Chinese
subject, but the English only locked
him up in a cabin of Admiral Hope's
flagship, from which he escaped by
leaping at night through the win-
dow.

A NEW ENGLANDER IN CHINA

635

In a few short weeks Ward had
organized an army, routed a vastly
greater body of rebels, and returned
to the trembling city of Shanghai, a
hero and a power in China. He was
made a mandarin of the red button,
and Tae Kee added a splendid
estate to the promised reward. He
afterwards married the daughter
of an influential Chinaman. He
planned to capture the rebel strong-
hold at Nankin, and was ambitious
to overthrow the Tartar dynasty
and become a prince of royal blood.
Had he been spared to realize this
dream, which was one of the boldest
ever- conceived by an American,
China to-day might have been a pro-
gressive nation, rather than the prey
of others.

But Ward was not destined to ac-
complish his ambition. Critics con-
demn him, because the Tae Pings,
whom he crushed, were Christians,

Gen. Ward's Chinese Wife

Gen. Frederick T. Ward from Portrait in
Essex Institute, Salem

led by Wang, a missionary convert.
In this sense he blocked a Christian
movement. But, although Chris-
tians, they were fanatics, and Ward
defended the peaceable from their
fury.

Ward strengthened his army,
placed it under iron discipline,
taught it the tactics he had learned
of the French and of Garabaldi, and
led it with marvellous skill and
courage. His campaign against the
Tae Pings was one of the most san-
guinary of modern history, the Chi-
nese, as usual, fighting with utter
disregard of life. The rebels were
routed from stronghold after strong-
hold, and so continuously successful
was Ward that the Chinese, in ad-
miration, called his army the "Ever
Victorious."

636

THE ISLAND MILLER

As the sun of fortune smiled upon
Ward in the Orient, clouds gathered
over his native land. The Civil War
broke out, and he yearned to offer
his sword to Lincoln, but being un-
able to do so, so greatly was he
needed in China, he sent $10,000
for the war fund of the North. A
similar amount has recently been
bequeathed to the Essex Insti-
tute in Salem, Massachusetts, to
found a Chinese library in his
memory.

At Tae Ki he was very severely
wounded while directing the move-
ments of his army. He refused to
leave the field until the battle was
won, when he was taken to Ningo
Po, where he died the next day, Oc-
tober 23, 1862. The Chinese laid
his remains to rest in the Confucian
temple at Sang Keang, the very spot
where he had established his head-
quarters after his first great victory,
and to this day they burn incense
before his tomb.

The Island Miller

By Harriet A. Nash

HE autumn sunshine of
1799 flooded the wide
M valley of the Kennebec,

and the crisp air was full
of invigorating life. A traveller,
who from earliest dawn had followed
the river road, pressing each hour
farther into what to him was an un-
known wilderness, rode swiftly past
the scattered dwellings that formed
the earliest. Bloomfield settlement,
and on toward the newer settlement
above, where prophecy already fore-
told a growing town. His dress
was that of a city youth ; his bear-
ing that of one to whom fate has
ever turned a smiling face. And in-
deed Sylvester Trent, though pos-
sessing naught of worldly wealth
save the clothes upon his back and
the noble horse beneath him, was
a youth whom many another might
have envied. For was he not young,

strong and full of courage for the
future? Still more, was there not
stored away beneath his foppishly
curled locks' the fruit of a full course
at America's greatest institution of
learning, and folded in his pocket
the tangible evidence of these years
of study, in the sheepskin document
which admitted him to the practice
of his chosen profession in the Com-
monwealth of Massachusetts? It
was little to him that the over-
crowded ranks had forced him to
seek a field of labor far from his
native town of Boston. There he
might have toiled for years before
achieving the fame he meant to win.
Here, he argued with the egotism
of youth, it must lie ready to his
hand, compelled in no small degree
by the veneration in which these
sturdy Maine settlers would hold
his educational advantages. A phy-

THE ISLAND MILLER

637

sician, whose diploma bore the
magic name of Harvard, need have
no fear of ill success. Somewhere
along this fragrant valley he
would make his home ; far and wide
among these sun-crowned hills he
would go on his errands of healing.
A wife and family? He dismissed
the thought as unimportant. Years
hence perhaps, when success was
his, some city maiden might be per-
suaded to share his exile. Yet his
profession must ever be first. He
was burning with impatience to put
his well taught lessons into prac-
tice ; and there were certain meth-
ods o£ his own, differing somewhat
from the teachings, which he had a
daring eagerness to try.

He rode swiftly down the long
hill, and paused where an opening
in the trees gave a glimpse of
Bloomfield Island, crowned now
with russet and green. The waters
of the south channel rippled leisure-
ly along their rocky bed, in contrast
to the leaping falls upon the other
side. Beyond it all lay the hills
of Milburn. Sylvester Trent took
off his hat. "On that island shall
be my home," he said. He rode
across the dusky bridge and paused
again where a group of children
were gathering acorns, to inquire
where lodging for man and beast
might be obtained, for the hour of
noon was near. The children gazed
shyly at the stranger and forgot to
answer. But an older maiden came
forward from the shelter of the
trees. "My father would • perhaps
accommodate you, sir," she said
blushing. "His mill is just behind
that cluster of pines, and the house
near by."

Her hair matched the brown glis-
tening leaves of the oaks, and her
eyes the deep color of the sky. To
Sylvester Trent she seemed the em-
bodiment of the day itself. He dis-
mounted, suddenly conscious that
he had never noticed a woman be-
fore, and felt a deep desire to pro-
long the interview. Yet no word
came to his lips. The elegant city
gentleman was, for the first time in
his life, thoroughly embarrassed.
The maiden turned away. The
man stammered his thanks, and
moved on walking beside his horse,
his train of thought broken, and his
well formed plans scattered to the
winds. Success no doubt awaited
him — it could not be otherwise —
but a keener desire possessed him
now, and he congratulated himself
as he went that he had in his at-
tainments so promising a passport
to her father's favor.

The earlier settlers of Bloomfield
had laughed in derision, when
Friend Taylor, years before, planted
his gristmill at the head of Bloom-
field Island. And Friend Taylor
never quite forgave the laughter,
though the rapidly changing course
of events proved his judgment to
have been correct. Through all the
passing years he had lived among
the people of the town, but never
of them. True, he laid aside the
faith of his Quaker ancestors, and
worshipped each Sabbath in the vil-
lage church at the old settlement.
But his air of religious toleration
was irritating both to pastor and
church fathers, and the early death
of his beloved wife was held to have
been a judgment for his arrogance.

He stood before his mill as the

638

THE ISLAND MILLER

traveller approached, — a sturdy
figure in gray clothes, rendered
grayer by his morning's work, —
and even Sylvester Trent's san-
guine nature could not fail to per-
ceive that he had chosen an inop-
portune moment for his introduc-
tion. A finely built man upon a
black horse was riding away, and
the miller looked after him, shak-
ing with rage and muttering be-
neath his breath. Nor was his
wrath appeased when Sylvester,
with a nearly fatal blunder, opened
the conversation by asking the
other's name and commenting upon
his fine physique. "Fine indeed, "
roared the miller, "had there been
brains enough put with it to do a
man's work in the world. Instead
thee sees the pitiful sight of a man's
strength wasted in an old woman's
work ; brewing of herbs and
humoring the superstitious notions
of sick folks. Physician indeed!
Would that the whole race of them
were where they are only too ready
to help others."

The youth's face fell. About his
ears seemed tumbling the wonder-
ful castle his hopes had reared. Yet
a thought of his beloved diploma
gave him courage. "His ignorance
of medicine may be at fault," he
suggested anxiously.

The miller raged again. "He
boasts more learning, than the min-
ister," he shouted. "And that very
learning is the undoing of the fool-
ish ones who put their lives in his
hands. An ignorant man might be
content with brewing herbs and set-
ting bones. He dabbles in notions
of his own, very kin to the black
arts. But enough of him and his

kind," he added, surveying the
young man keenly. "Has thee busi-
ness with me?"

Friend Taylor's hospitable nature
gave ready consent to the young
stranger's request for a few days'
lodging, and he showed much inter-
est when Sylvester announced his
intention of settling in Bloomfield.
"What is thy occupation?" he in-
quired.

The young man hesitated. "I — I
am looking for employment," he
answered, forgetting in a moment
all his hopes and plans and remem-
bering only the blue-eyed girl in
homespun gown.

He strolled about the mill, and
accompanied his host to dinner with
a growing self-contempt. Even
Hester Taylor's grace as she poured
the tea and prepared the potatoes
for her younger brothers and sister
seemed to reproach him for dis-
honesty. He went to his chamber
after dinner, filled with sudden de-
termination. He would carry his
diploma to Friend Taylor, confess
the truth, and then in honest com-
petition with the older physician,
begin his struggle for success. But
he uttered an exclamation of dismay
as he thrust his hand in the coat
pocket. The sheepskin document
was gone, and a long rent in the
lining left no room for doubt as to
how his diploma was lost. Without
it he could never hope to practise
his profession.

Bloomfield felt deep interest in
Friend Taylor's new apprentice. A
youth so comely of face and grace-
ful in manner could not fail to win
attention even though he occupy the

THE ISLAND MILLER

639

humble position of a miller's appren-
tice. There were many who shook
their heads ominously and lamented
Friend Taylor's rashness in admit-
ting a stranger to his family circle.
But the miller was not a man to
accept advice, and having pro-
nounced his satisfaction in his as-
sistant, he gave the matter no
further concern, save to take thrifty
precautions that the young man give
full value in work for the wages
paid him. As for the youth himself
as he swung heavy bags of corn
from the laden farm horses, or
watched the yellow meal sift in a
golden shower from the hopper, he
wondered if he were indeed the
same youth who had ridden tri-
umphantly up the valley of the Ken-
nebec, striving to determine what
particular locality should be favored
by the bestowal of his talents. By
this time he had thought to be well
settled in his practice and to have
his name passed from house to
house as the most skilful practition-
er of all the region about. Instead he
toiled in the busy mill, in homespun
clothing white with dust, and Dr. '
Seabury, whom the miller would not
serve himself, patronizingly called
him "my lad." Yet he was not un-
happy. For he was living under the
same roof with Hester Taylor,
whose character seemed to unfold
new graces each day. And though
Friend Taylor informed him, in the
early days of their acquaintance,
that Hester was destined to spin-
sterhood, which had ever been the
fate of the eldest daughter in his
family, Sylvester, with the hopeful-
ness which was his by nature, did

not hesitate deep in his own heart
to lay other plans for her.

Friend Taylor came into the
warm kitchen, shaking the snow
from his garments, and being a man
somewhat given to interfering in
domestic concerns, opened the brick
oven with no little clattering of the
iron door. A look of displeasure
crossed his face.

"What does this mean, Hester?"
he asked severely. "Where are thy
preparations for the Lord's day?"

Hester looked bewildered and
made some mental calculations,
counting off events upon her fin-
gers. "Why, father, surely this is
but the sixth day," she answered.

Friend Taylor's displeasure deep-
ened. "I tell thee it is seventh
day," he insisted with dignity.
"Thee is becoming light headed,
Hester. I foretold harm would
come of it, when I permitted the
scarlet ribbon on thy winter bonnet.
Thee may remove it as soon as the
Lord's day is past. And if thee can-
not conduct my household affairs
with more propriety, I shall send for
thy aunt Deborah to come and over-
see thee."

Hester looked meekly downward,
but Sylvester Trent, who had en-
tered behind the miller, spoke brave-
ly, though with due respect.

"You are surely wrong, sir," he
said. "To-morrow will be Satur-
day."

"Silence, sir," commanded the
miller. "Am I to be disputed under
my own roof? To-morrow is the
Lord's day and as such we will keep
it, though we suffer with hunger,"

640

THE ISLAND MILLER

The morrow brought heavy
winds and deepening snow drifts.
There could be no thought of
church. The head of the household
read aloud from a book of sermons,
while Hester used every art to keep
the children quiet, and Sylvester
watched Hester, and thought about
his lost diploma. It was the last
Sabbath of the year, and Friend
Taylor took advantage of the occa-
sion to make personal application
of the sermon to each of his young
hearers, chiding with impartial can-
dor Hester's love of gayety, the
young apprentice's pride of manner,
and little Nathaniel's tendency to
untruthfulness.

For three days the roads were
impassable until on the third the
wheels of the mill lay idle for want
of grist. On that day, at breakfast,
the miller, with some importance,
announced the approach of the new
year, which was to be the closing
year of the century, and discoursed
at some length on the privilege and
duty of making the next twelve
month a fitting climax to a century
which had seen given to the world
such wondrous manifestations of
the power of right, and the majesty
of freedom.

"He seems to think he arranged
it all himself," thought Sylvester,
who had not forgotten the experi-
ences of the Sabbath.

"I have never yet failed to watch
the arrival of the new year," the
miller assured him ; and though the
apprentice inwardly argued that
the new year was not due for an-
other twenty-four hours, he re-
frained, with an effort, from ex-
pressing his conviction.

After the early evening meal the
family seated themselves in solemn
state before the kitchen fire, and the
silence of a true Quaker meeting
fell upon them. The hours wore
away. Hester noiselessly with-
drew to the long settle, and pil-
lowed a sleepy little head on each
arm. Sylvester looked longingly
in her direction, but Friend Taylor
sat between. Another hour passed
before an unmistakable sound came
from the miller's armchair. He was
sleeping. Sylvester rose and in si-
lence drew nearer to the wooden
settle. It might be weeks, he re-
flected, before another opportunity
of uninterrupted speech were his.
Beyond question, the hour had
come for making known to Hester
his hopes and desires. He hesi-
tated a little when at last his cau-
tious steps paused before her.
Hester glanced shyly up at him,
then dropped her long lashes in
some confusion. The look was en-
couraging, but it offered to Sylves-
ter no suggestion as to his next
procedure. He reflected for a mo-
ment, twisting the top button on
his waistcoat, as he had been wont
to do in preparation for a brilliant
recitation, and all at once regretted
that his busy student life had left
him neither time nor inclination for
the cultivation of woman's society
or the knowledge of woman's heart.
All at once, as if in answer to his
regret, came a memory of his child-
hood,— a picture on the parlor wall
at home of an ardent suitor kneel-
ing in supplication at the feet of a
pale young woman, in green dress
and blue slippers, with long flowing
hair.

THE ISLAND MILLER

641

Sylvester knelt. The result was
not unpleasing, since it enabled him
to look upward into Hester's eyes.
They were still encouraging, and
with growing confidence he spoke
softly, marvelling that what had
seemed so difficult should prove so
easy. When, a half hour later, the
tall clock in the corner rang out
twelve lingering strokes, merging
the thirtieth of December, 1799,
into the thirty-first, he was kneel-
ing still, but holding Hester's hand
in his, and counting diploma, pro-
fession and worldly success well
lost for gain of her.

The armchair creaked and Friend
Taylor's eyes opened wide upon the
group. Sylvester rose in some con-
fusion, but Hester's voice said
smoothly, "Thee is correct, Friend
Trent. Nathaniel's shoes are badly
in need of repair, but methinks the
hour of the new year were better
spent in meditation than in such
worldly considerations."

Friend Taylor's eyes rested upon
his daughter with unwonted ap-
proval. To this one at least of his
family the season had brought its
lesson of unworldliness. He longed
to add his own word of reproof, but
a guilty consciousness that he had
been asleep deterred him.

The next night found the miller's
family early at rest. For roads
again were open and the day had
been a busy one. But scarcely had
the silence of slumber settled upon
the house when a sharp knocking at
the front door sounded above the
river's ever present voice. Friend
Taylor, hastily dressing, descended
the steep stairs, candle in hand.
Hester, already before him, was

ushering into the chilly fore room
an imposing trio— Parson Whith-
ers, Dr. Seabury and Deacon Piatt.

"We have come," began the min-
ister gravely, and in a tone which
left no doubt that his host was un-
der the pastoral displeasure, "upon
an errand of much distaste. We
came in the expectation of finding
you watching the arrival of the
new year, with a heart softened
to receive well merited rebuke. In-
stead we find you slumbering away
the precious hours that should be
spent in self-examination and re-
pentance. It thus becomes doubly
our duty to censure you for your
unrighteous conduct in turning the
wheels of your mill during the
whole of last Sabbath day." He
paused.

Over Friend Taylor there rushed
a vivid realization of his error.
Explain it? Never. Rather would
he be pronounced guilty of every
sin in the decalogue than stoop to
the humiliation of admitting him-
self mistaken. "Well," he said de-
fiantly. "And suppose my mill did
turn upon the Sabbath day? What
are you three that you should pre-
sume to come and censure an hon-
est man whose only sin is against
the Lord and to be judged by him
alone. Were I guilty of a sin
against my brother man, like thee,
Deacon Piatt, who cheats his neigh-
bor of his honest due ; or thee, Dr.
Seabury, who wastes a man's
strength in an old woman's work
and brings to the grave many an in-
nocent one whom nature alone might
cure ; or thee, Parson Whithers,
who lets the weeds grow among
his corn, until his patient wife is

642

THE ISLAND MILLER

hard put to it to feed her children's
hungry mouths, then, indeed, it
might be a matter for man's inter-
ference."

Three voices mingled in rapid re-
sponse ; the parson's in stern con-
demnation, Dr. Seabury's in keen
sarcasm, and Deacon Piatt's in the
merely wrathful tones of a very
angry man. But above them all
rose the calm accents of Friend
Taylor, whose anger was too deep
for rage.

"Go home, neighbors, and get the
beams out of thine own eyes," he
commanded. "I'll make my affairs
right with a higher and a wiser
Judge."

As Friend Taylor bolted the front
door behind the departing trio,
Hester came timidly from the
lighted kitchen. "Shall I get the
children up, father?" she inquired.
"It is yet an hour to the stroke of
twelve."

Friend Taylor started for the
stairs. "No," he said shortly. "The
Lord gave the night time for sleep
in preparation for the morrow's la-
bors. We will go to bed."

Bloomfield stirred with wonder
when on the first day of the new year
1800, workmen were seen clearing
away the snow from a small plot on
the main road across the island. They
wondered more when a cellar was dug
in the rock and frozen earth, and ex-
claimed loudly when a building rose
thereon which was neither house
nor barn, but bore certain resem-
blances to each. When some weeks
later it was completed, there could
be no doubt of the building's pur-
pose. Friend Taylor had built a
church wherein he might worship

according to his own faith and un-
disturbed by stern allusions from
pulpit or scornful glances from pew.
There, Sabbath after Sabbath, the
Taylor family spent hours of silent
meditation. The head of the fam-
ily on a high seat he had built for
himself in the rear, the others on
low benches. Sylvester and the
two little boys on one side, while
Hester, in her drab bonnet, from
which the scarlet ribbon had dis-
appeared, sat with little Susan on
the other.

The months wore on. The frozen
river waked to life and raged a
foaming yellow flood about the old
mill, for many days, before it reluc-
tantly settled back to its usual
course. Spring found her slow way
up the valley of the Kennebec and
summer followed swiftly. To Syl-
vester Trent, toiling through the
long days in the dusty mill, spend-
ing his evenings in the family cir-
cle, of which Hester was to him the
central figure, and seizing every op-
portunity for a moment's low-toned
conversation with her, it came to
seem that he had never known an-
other life than this. The pangs of
regret with which he had recalled
his youthful hopes grew fainter.
It was fast becoming a matter of
course to his thought that he
should spend his days upon this
spot, serving the miller faithfully
and marrying Hester by and by,
when he should win the paternal
consent, which as yet he dared not
ask.

The miller, since the new year,
had seemed a different man. The
bursts of anger in which he had
been wont to indulge were rigidly

THE ISLAND MILLER

643

controlled. In the family circle he
grew more severe and exacting
each day, and among his townsmen
bore himself with a silent dignity
as became one who occupied a high
seat in the meeting. Early in the
summer he rebuilt his seat, making
it higher by several inches, and a
few weeks later, when he had one
day so far controlled himself as to
serve his enemy, Dr. Seabury, with
silent courtesy, he raised it higher
still, so that a long flight of steps
was necessary to reach it. It was
this very seat that caused his un-
doing at last. For on an August
Sabbath, when the meeting had
been long drawn out, until the
younger members of the family
were restless to the verge of rebel-
lion, the miller, in descending the
steps, slipped and fell. There was
a heavy crash and the meeting
broke up in confusion, as the others
sprang to his assistance. Friend
Taylor, with a broken limb, lay
groaning among the ruins of his
lofty seat.

It was the apprentice who quieted
the children, reassured Hester, and
himself brought a cart filled with
straw to convey the injured man
home. Then, without asking per-
mission, he despatched Nathaniel
for Dr. ' Seabury. Nathaniel re-
turned alone.

"He said any old woman would
do as well," sobbed the child, angry
at the rebuff and terrified at his
father's condition.

Sylvester brought out his own
gray horse and mounted, the little
fellow upon it. "The parson has
good knowledge of broken bones,"
he said. "You must go for him,

my lad." There was a weary in-
terval of waiting, in which the ap-
prentice paced nervously about the
yard. Too well he knew the dan-
ger of delay, and the limb was
swelling. Again the boy returned
alone. For Parson Whithers had
not hesitated to pronounce the acci-
dent a righteous visitation, and de-
clared he dared not interfere with
the decrees of Providence.

Sylvester stood beside the great
high post bed, upon which the
miller lay, groaning now with ap-
prehension rather than with pain.
"I am crippled for life," he reit-
erated.

"If you dared but trust me, sir,"
began the apprentice in a tone that
trembled with eagerness. "I am
the seventh son of a seventh son
and have some small knowledge, of
surgery."

Friend Taylor hesitated. "Thee
can but murder me," he said grimly
at last. "And rather would I be
dead than crippled."

There was great astonishment
throughout Bloomfield when it be-
came known that Friend Taylor's
apprentice, alone and unaided, had
set a broken limb. And there were
many who did not hesitate to pre-
dict that the miller would never
walk again. Later, when Friend
Taylor appeared once more upon
the streets with firm, unhalting
steps, there were some — Dr. Sea-
bury among them — who declared
the limb had never been broken;
but Bloomfield, ever lenient to the
young and ready to advance their
fortunes, had become interested in
this seventh son of a seventh son.
The week following Friend Tay-

644

THE ISLAND MILLER

lor's recovery a man who had a dif-
ference of opinion with Dr. Sea-
bury called at the mill with a
poisoned hand. A week later there
was a boy with a broken arm,
whose parents, being people of
progressive minds and abundant
faith in Providence, intrusted him
to the young man's care. Follow-
ing this there were thrust upon his
attention several cases of quinsy.
Yet throughout it all, conscious of
the miller's watchful eye, Sylvester
was careful to neglect no duty at
the mill and to serve his exacting
employer with even more scrupu-
lous faithfulness than before.

The Taylor family went no more
to the Quaker church. For in the
autumn Parson Whithers decided
that school teaching in a coast town
offered more abundant remunera-
tion than his present occupation,
and his successor proved to have
been a boyhood friend of Friend
Taylor's in a Massachusetts town,
a man of peace, who held the win-
ning of Heaven a lesser duty than
living on earth with a spirit of
brotherly love toward one's fellow
men.

"Has thee spoken to my father
yet?" Hester inquired anxiously
one autumn day.

Sylvester shook his head. "The
hour is not yet ripe," he said. "At
new year's time it will be a year
since you first promised me. Then,
whatever his mood, I will tell him
all."

"He will never forgive the decep-
tion," returned Hester despond-
ently. "Yet it seems he is not so bit-
ter against thy profession as he once
was."

But long before the new year,
Friend Taylor sought his appren-
tice one day, in a quiet corner of
the old mill.

"Am I correct," he asked abrupt-
ly, "in believing thee has affection
for my daughter Hester? I had
other plans," he said slowly, inter-
rupting the young man's eager tor-
rent of words. "But the heart of
the child follows not after the plans
of the parent. Thee is an honest
lad and has within thee the making
of a good miller. I have written
my sister Deborah to come and
care for my house. Thee may be-
come my son-in-law at the new
year."

Sylvester hesitated, longing to
confess the whole truth to the kind
old man. But a fear lest the hap-
piness so near his grasp be swept
away deterred him. And after all,
without his lost diploma, he could
never hope to take the stand in his
profession which alone would sat-
isfy him. In a brief moment he
made his choice and settled the
matter in his own heart for all
time. He would marry Hester and
be to the end of life the island
miller, only serving his neighbors
when called upon by what they be-
lieved his magic birthright.

Events moved busily with Friend
Taylor at the helm. The Quaker
church was built into a dwelling
for the young couple, and the miller
went himself to the Hook for fur-
niture, which with his own hands
he placed in the completed house.
"Thee shall see it first when thee
enters there a bride," he said to his
daughter.

It was a simple wedding, as be-

THE ISLAND MILLER

645

came a modest Quaker maid. And
after the ceremony the whole wed-
ding party accompanied the young
couple, over the crisp snow, be-
neath the pine trees, to their new
home. On one side the wide hall
was the parlor, into which the
guests poured with admiring ex-
clamations. But Friend Taylor
unlocked the opposite door and
placed the key in the bridegroom's
hand.

"Take it, my lad ; thee has earned
it," he said genially. "This year
and more of humble toil has taught
thee many needed lessons in sim-
plicity and self-control. Thee is a
good miller. But the seventh son
of a seventh son must not waste his
birthright."

Sylvester stared. The room was
scantily furnished, yet each article
sent a thrill of delight to his heart.
There was a high mahogany desk

and a few chairs. Long shelves
upon the walls were filled with
empty bottles, and in the farthest
corner hung a skeleton, which the
young man greeted with the rap-
ture of one long parted from his
kind. Over the mantel there hung
—Sylvester rubbed his eyes and
looked again ; yes, it was — his long-
lost diploma.

"Thee's a smart lad," the miller
chuckled in delight. "But thee
never fooled the old man for an
hour. I found it in a measure of
meal before thee had been a half
hour in my mill."

The new clock in the hall began
to strike in measured solemn tones.
The bride slipped her hand in her
husband's as they stood side by side
before the fireplace. And silence
fell upon the group as the lingering
strokes announced the birth of a
century.

^»

New Year's Eve in the Woodlands

By Alice D'Alcho

STRIPT of their glory — desolate and bare
Stand the tall elms beneath the lowering skies ;
Lifting their arms to heaven in voiceless prayer, . ,

While round their feet their fallen vesture lies.

Yet, 'neath the mouldering leaves, green blades are springing,
With lowly faith in what the days are bringing;
So, life with death — ruin with promise blending —
Cometh the new year, with the year now ending!

Not one faint ripple stirs the lake's dull breast —
Glassy and still, it lies in deathlike sleep ;
Sad drooping reeds around its margin's crest,
With dark-robed pines, a solemn vigil keep.

Yet, far below are warmer currents springing —
With lowly faith in what the days are bringing ;
So, life with death — ruin with promise blending —
Cometh the new year, with the year now ending!

Hushed is the music — empty nests and cold
Cry for the singers of the summer days ;
Vanished all happy things, of hues untold —
And silence reigns through all the woodland ways.

Yet our hearts know how soon they'll back be winging
With the bright days new hope and gladness bringing;
So life with death — ruin with promise blending —
Cometh the new year, with the year now ending!

646

The State Capitol, Hartford

New England Magazine

New Series

FEBRUARY, 1903

VOL. XXVII NO. 6

The City of Hartford

By William De Loss Love

THOUSANDS of travelers be-
tween New York and Boston
have a bowing acquaintance
with Hartford, the half-way
city; but nothing more. The train
makes a serpentine curve through
its centre, circling its manufactories
and suddenly brings into view the
State Capitol, with gilded dome
towering high above a vast pile of
spotless stone. Before it slopes its
ample grounds, facing the more ex-
tensive lawns, fountains, trees and
flowers of a park, which owes its
existence and name to a distin-
guished citizen, Horace Bushnell.*
Before the train stops one may
catch a passing view of Asylum Street,

* See Editor's Table of New England Magazine,
December, 1899 and January, 1900.

leading eastward to the business cen-
tre and City Hall Square, amid lofty
buildings, or glance westward
toward the hill, on which are located
the best private residences.

Hurried as is the traveler's vision
it after all includes this considerable
number of things that are fairly
representative of the city, which has
been called the "Gem of New Eng-
land." Bushnell Park is an example
of its extensive park system, com-
prising twelve hundred acres, — the
largest of any in the United States
in proportion to the city's popula-
tion. On "the hill," should the trav-
eler stroll along its avenues, would
be found many beautiful homes.
And as for men and women whose
names are famous in literature, sci-

649

Bushnell Park

From photographs loaned by R. S. Peck & Co.

The Gorge, Keney Park

THE HARTFORD PARKS

650

Pope Park

From photographs loaned by R. S. Peck & Co.

Riverside Park

THE HARTFORD PARKS

651

652

THE CITY OF HARTFORD

From a photograph, copyright 1901, by Herbert O.
Warner

Waltermere, Keney Park
ence, theology and business, Hart-
ford has had her full share. The
high buildings fitly represent the
insurance companies which have here
their home offices and do business in
all sections of the country ; and the
numerous factories indicate the many
thrifty companies engaged in the man-
ufacture of bicycles, electric vehicles,
guns, tools and machines for which the
city has wide reputation. In the
Capitol there is a suggestion of the
place which Hartford holds in the
history of the state, for h-ere the
commonwealth was born and many
notable events have here since
transpired.

In the year 1614 Adrisen Block, the
Dutch adventurer, while exploring
Long Island Sound, sailed up the Con-
necticut River in a small vessel called
the Onrust (Restless) which he had
built at New Amsterdam. He noticed
that the tide did not follow him far,

and so he gave the river the name
"Fresh," but the Indians called it
Quonehtacut and the English settlers
did likewise. The Dutch found at
Suckiaug (Black-earth), where In-
dians of that tribe were located and
where Hartford was afterwards built,
an expanse of cleared and fertile mead-
ow land, and they naturally thought
it would be a good place to establish a
trading post. So at the mouth of the
Little River, emptying into the Con-
necticut from the west, they made a
beginning in 1623, and ten years later
they had there a fort, surrounded with
twenty-five acres of "bouwerie" or
tilled land, which they called the
"House of Hope." Until 1633, their
claim to this ground was based on
rights of discovery. In that year they
bought from a Pequot sachem, to
whom the Suckiaug Indians were sup-
posed to be tributary, most of the tract

Horace Bushnell

Hall of Representatives

The Senate Chamber

653

654

THE CITY OF HARTFORD

now covered by the city. The Eng-
lish, when they came in 1636, obtained
their title from Sequassen, chief of the
latter tribe, who were the actual pos-
sessors of the land. In consequence
of this conflict of rights the Dutch and
English did not live as peaceful neigh-
bors. The later comers were more
numerous and crowded out the pio-
neers. Finally in 1653, when England
and Holland were at war, the colony
confiscated the fort, and this was the
last of the Dutch at Hartford.

The reputation of these fertile river
lands spread abroad among the colo-
nists of Massachusetts. It found its
way to many in Watertown, Dorches-
ter and Newtowne (Cambridge) who
wanted to remove to "some convenient
place" and were quite willing to get
outside the jurisdiction of that colony,
without being questioned as to their
reasons. Among these the Rev. Thom-
as Hooker, pastor of the Newtowne
church, will always be considered the
leader. His opinions were more demo-
cratic in matters of church and state
than those then prevailing among the
ministers, and were naturally shared
by some of the most intelligent lay-
men. So it happened that three river
plantations were established, — Weth-
ersfield by inhabitants of Watertown,
Windsor by the removal of the Dor-
chester church, which had been or-
ganized at Plymouth, England, in
1630, and Hartford by the church of
Newtowne, formed there in 1632.
Hooker's company came in 1636, trav-
ersing the intervening wilderness with
their flocks, and carrying ^he pastor's
wife in a palanquin. The town they
founded was called Hartford in honor
of the English birthplace of Rev.
Samuel Stone, the teacher of their

church. Thomas Hooker was born
probably in 1586 at Marfield, Leices-
tershire, England. He was graduated
at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and
had been a minister at Chelmsford in
Essex. Many of his company were
friends from that region. He left
about two dozen volumes of his Puri-
tan theology, which, without disre-
spect, the present generation would
be glad to exchange for a few pages of
early Connecticut history from his
pen. However his opinions are clear-
ly manifest in what transpired. These
colonists had removed from Massa-
chusetts under a commission granted
by that government to order their af-
fairs for one year. This period ex-
pired and they were left to look out
for themselves. They doubtless wel-
comed the chance. It was suspected
that the Massachusetts line ran north
of them and they were free to establish
their own government. This they did
in the Hartford meeting-house Janu-
ary 14, 1639, by the adoption of the
"Fundamental Orders" — "The first ex-
ample in history of a written constitu-
tion, a distinct organic law, constitut-
ing a government and defining its
powers." Thus Connecticut democ-
racy was born. A government was
founded in which the authority was a
divine right belonging to the people, —
a principle which has been very effect-
ively proclaimed at sundry times in
American history.

The "Fundamental Orders" consti-
tuted a federation of the three river
towns with equal rights to each and
the supreme power vested in a General
Court. So long as these and the new
towns presented no striking differences
in population — all being farming com-
munities for many years — no injustice

THE CITY OF HARTFORD

655

was apparent, and thus the system
which now gives town and city the
same number of representatives was
developed. The clause in their consti-
tution which provided that the repre-
sentation of new towns should be "a
reasonable proportion to the number of
freemen that are in the said towns,"
seems to have died in infancy and been
buried in a forgotten grave. To this
evident injustice, however, was due the
Constitutional Convention which re-
cently made Hartford conspicuous
and whose revised constitution was re-
jected by the people.

The founders of Hartford were an
industrious, intelligent and religious
company of about two hundred per-
sons, including women and children.
In civil affairs John Haynes was fore-
most. He had been the governor of
Massachusetts in 1635 and was the-
first governor of Connecticut. Wil-
liam Goodwin was the ruling elder of
their church and Andrew Warner and
Edward Stebbins were deacons. The

From a photograph, copyright 1901,
Warner

Center Church

by Herbert'O.

Charter Oak Chair

earliest handwriting in their town rec-
ords is that of William Spencer, who
had been their town clerk in Massa-
chusetts. In 1639 he was succeeded
by John Steele. Others of their prom-
inent men were George Wyllys, Ed-
ward Hopkins, Thomas Welles, John
Webster, William Whiting, Matthew
Allyn and John Talcott. The Ancient
Burying-ground has in its centre a
brownstone monument which was
erected in 1837 "in memory of the first
settlers of Hartford," and has most of
their names upon it.

Fully three-fourths of the founders
of Hartford have descendants in the
city today. The following names are
familiar : Adams, Allyn, Andrews, Ba-
con, Barnard, Bidwell, Bull, Bunce,
Burr, Butler, Church, Clark, Day, Ely,
Goodwin, Hills, Hooker, Hopkins,

656

THE CITY OF HARTFORD

Hosmer, Lord, Lyman, Olcott, Olm-
sted, Pratt, Seymour, Spencer, Stan-
ley, Steele, Talcott, Wadsworth, Ward,
Welles, Whiting and Wyllys. The
founders built their first meeting-house
— a simple log structure, replaced by
another in 1639 — on a common, of
which the present City Hall Square is
the remnant. It stood near the site of
the present Post Office and their early
burials were north of it. They had a
market, a jail, stocks and a whipping-
post near by. A more extensive bury-
ing-ground, where now the fathers
sleep, was soon located. Through the
efforts of the Ruth Wyllys chapter of
the Daughters of the American Revo-
lution, this has been recently im-
proved. An alley on the south has
been widened into Gold Street, the
gravestones have been repaired and
a substantial iron fence has been
erected. Its graceful gateway is a
memorial of Governor John Haynes,
erected by two of his descendants,
and is so marked with appropri-
ate bronze tablets. In 1737 the First
Church of Christ removed from its old
location to the southeast corner of the
burymg-ground, erecting a new edifice.
In the same place its present house of
worship was built in 1806.

Meanwhile the Second Church had

The Golf Club '

been organized and about 1670 had
built a meeting-house south of the Lit-
tle River. It stood near the residence
of the late Hon. Henry C. Robinson.
This was succeeded by another edifice
in 1752, which stood north of the pres-
ent house of worship, built in 1825.

The first war in which Hartford
bore a part was in 1637 against the
Pequot Indians. Thomas Bull was
its chief warrior. The town's quota
was forty-two out of the ninety sol-
diers engaged and it backed them up
with a goodly supply of corn. Samuel
Stone went as their chaplain and
cheered them on, as Joshua did his
heroes. Some of the present genera-
tion have severely criticised the fathers
for this cruel conflict, but Captain Un-
derbill, who was one of them, wrote,
"We had sufficient light from the
Word of God for our proceedings."
This war resulted in the downfall of
an enemy which might easily have
overwhelmed the settlement. The
town rewarded its soldiers with an
allotment of land to each. The tract
was afterwards known as the "Sol-
diers' Field," and lies west of the
meadow creek near Riverside Park.
It is thought to have been the first
instance of a bounty paid to Ameri-
can soldiers.

The hiding of the colo-
nial charter in the famous
oak tree at Hartford is a
familiar story. On the
31st of October, 1687, Sir
Edmund Andros de-
manded its surrender. It
was Halloween night and
the spirits were abroad in
full force. A conference
was held in the Assembly
chamber, the upper room

I /

From the only photograph extant, by courtesy of F. G. Whitmore, Esq., Secretary of the Hartford
Board of Park Commissioners

The Charter Oak
Trumbull Roger Wolcott, who was nine years

of the meeting-house,
says, "The lights were instantly ex-
tinguished and one Captain Wads-
worth of Hartford, in the most silent
and secret manner, carried off the
charter and secreted it in a hollow
tree." This tree stood near the Wyl-
lys mansion. It was "esteemed sa-
cred" as far back as 1780. Governor

old when the event occurred, wrote
in his memoir, "They ordered the char-
ters to be set on the table, and unhap-
pily or happily, all the candles were
snuffed out at once, and when they
were lighted the charters were gone."
All historians agree that Connecticut's
charter was probably hidden in the

657

658

THE CITY OF HARTFORD

From a photograph loaned by R. S. Peck & Co.

Memorial Arch

oak, but when this happened and
whether it was the original or the du-
plicate is an unsettled point. These
Hartford patriots did not suppose they
were thus saving their liberties, but
only themselves from the disgrace of
a surrender. In 171 5 Captain Wads-
worth was rewarded by the Assembly
for his "faithful and good service" in
securing the duplicate charter in that
'very troublesome season." This doc-
ument is now preserved at the Capitol
in a frame made from the Charter
Oak. The tree, said to have been eight
hundred years old, fell August 21,
1856. Its hollow trunk and a frag-
ment of the original charter — rescued

from an old-time bonnet maker — with
the box in which it was brought from
England, are in the museum of the
Connecticut Historical Society. A sci-
on of the charter oak, now over fifty
years old, is growing in the eastern
section of Bushnell Park.

The later colonial history of Hart-
ford is uneventful. It was only an ag-
ricultural town, having 1,200 inhabi-
tants in 1687, 3,027 in 1756 and 5,031
in 1774. The population so late even
as 1830 was only 9,789. By the last
census it was eighty thousand.

In all the wars with the French
and Indians the town bore a
generous and valiant part, though
its situation protected it from in-
vasion. Indeed a hostile army never
set foot within its borders. The
influence of its people, however, was
always patriotic. Many companies of
soldiers went out from Hartford to
Canada and to Albany in the early
French wars. Colonel William Whit-
ing was conspicuous in these military
affairs, and in successive years led
forth the town's troops. Colonel Sam-
uel Talcott was afterwards their
leader. In 1757, some of the neutral
French refugees were quartered in
Hartford, the town erecting or hiring
a house for their use.

During the Revolutionary conflict,
Hartford was very active, sending
forth four companies of troops at the
first alarm under Captains Jonathan
Welles, Timothy Cheney, Abraham
Sedgwick and George Pitkin. It
gathered supplies, bred sedition and
drank beer, instead of tea like all good
people. The temper of the Hartford
Daughters of the Revolution is well
illustrated by their action in 1786,
when they took "into serious consid-

Hartford High School

eration the unhappy situation of their
country," which they attributed in
part to their extravagances, and de-
cided to reform their customs" of dress,
hoping to set a fashion for the state.
They resolved not to purchase any
"gauze, ribands, lace, feathers, beaver
hats, silk, muslins or chintze except for
weddings or mourning." This was
very good of them. It is a matter of
record that the town of Hartford was
a stronghold of influence, supporting
"Brother Jonathan" Trumbull, to
whom Washington looked often for
help. The surprise of Fort Ticonder-
oga was first planned at Hartford by
men who pledged their own estates to
it and saw it well carried out by Ethan
Allen. Many of the prisoners taken at
various times were very well fed and
housed in the town, but a few of them
went off without returning their
thanks.

The location of Hartford made it an
important place. Being on the high-

way of travel messengers were contin-
ually going and coming and many dis-
tinguished persons stopped at its inn.
John Hancock, Paul Revere, John
Paul Jones and the Marquis de Lafay-
ette visited the town. Twice the army
of French allies passed through it. On
the 2 ist of September, 1780, General
Washington and Count Rochambeau
met at the house of Colonel Jeremiah
Wadsworth in a war conference. The
Wadsworth Athenaeum now stands on
the site of the Wadsworth mansion,
where this conference was held, and an
ancient elm tree is marked by a bronze
tablet in memory of the event.

There is no doubt that the freedom
from disaster which Hartford enjoyed
during the Revolution contributed
greatly to its subsequent prosperity.
Its ancient homes were undisturbed,
and their families were not impover-
ished or scattered. Visitors regarded
it as a comfortable old town and a
good place in which to live. A certain

659

660

THE CITY OF HARTFORD

From a photograph, copyright 1899, by Herbert O.
Warner

V/adsworth Athenaeum

Scotchman named John Gerrond, who
traveled much and considers his poeti-
cal and prose works worthy to be print-
ed, came to Hartford in 1798. He re-
turned home and wrote of the town as
follows :

"I went to Hartford [from Boston] by
land, where I stopped about two months.
. . . . Hartford is a new city, and
stands on the side of a beautiful river; in
my opinion it is the best place of all America
to live in, for they seem a very friendly peo-
ple. How this' State of Connecticut got the
name of Yanky I cannot tell, but I observed
no poor people among them at all, and they
seemed well pleased at seeing their neigh-
bors thrive. Here is the largest and best
oxen I ever saw ; the ploughing is all per-
formed by them, and they sell for from eight
to twelve pounds sterling; the price of a
horse is from ten to twenty pounds. Hog
river runs along the south side of the town,
which obtained its name from being always
red and muddy. Many beautiful ladies here
want their foreteeth, I believe from eating
so much fruit. Provisions of all kinds are
plentiful and cheap, and the inhabitants live
well. Every tradesman lays in a stock of
cyder for the winter; at a cyder mill here I
saw the largest heap of apples I ever looked
on, about six hundred bushels. In this city
there is a quaker meetinghouse, and Eng-
lish and Presbyterian church. The goal,
which has the courthouse on the top of it,
is the most elegant building in the city."

This Scotchman wrote very truth-
fully in some respects. He did the ci-
der business full justice and uttered
the eternal truth about Park River and
very properly complimented the new
State capitol building, now the City

Hall, but he might have written more
judiciously of the ' 'beautiful ladies"
who have always been a cause of
the town's pride. Still, he was a
visitor from abroad and must be
pardoned.

The city of Hartford was incorpo-
rated in 1 784, its western boundary then
being about where the railroad now is.
In 1853, and later in 1859, l87J ancl
1873 *ts borders were extended. The
original city seal represented an old
man displaying the riches of the Con
necticut River, but in 1852 this was re-
placed by another on which a hart is
seen crossing a ford. Hon. Thomas
Seymour was the first mayor and held
the office for twenty-eight years. The
present mayor is Hon. Alexander Har-
.bison. The city has gradually added
the features incident to modern mu-
nicipal government, with police, fire,
street, water, health, park and charity
commissions. In 1879 tne °^ State
House, which had been used since
1796 and was the historic meeting
place of the Hartford Convention in
1814, was made the City Hall. It
shares the square with the govern-
ment building.

One of the distinctive features of
Hartford is its extensive insurance

Old State House

THE CITY OF HARTFORD

661

and banking interests. Its shipping
business on the river led to the incor-
poration, in 1803, of the Hartford Ma-
rine Insurance Company, but as early
as 1794 policies were issued for the
Hartford Fire Insurance Company and
the corporation of that name was char-
tered in 1810. It now has a capital of
$1,250,000, and assets of over $11,-
000,000. The president, Mr. George
L. Chase, was elected in 1867. The
^Etna Insurance Company was char-
tered in 1819 and now has a capital of
$4,000,000, and assets of over $14,000,-
000. Mr. William B. Clark is the
president. Other companies have fol-
lowed in the line of fire insurance, —
the Phoenix, Connecticut, National,
Orient and Hartford County Mutual.
Hartford was the first city in the Unit-
ed States to make a decided success of
life insurance. In 1846 the Connecti-
cut Mutual Life Insurance Company
was chartered and it is at the present
time one of the largest, with assets of
$65,000,000. Colonel Jacob L. Greene
was elected president in 1878. The
^Etna Life Insurance Company was
organized in 1850 and incorporated
in 1853. H°m Eliphalet A, Bulkeley,
who had been the first president of the
Connecticut Mutual, was its founder
and his son, Ex-Governor Morgan G.
Bulkeley, has been the president since
1879. Its assets are over $61,000,000.
There are other large companies in
this business at Hartford — the
Phoenix Mutual Life, of which Mr.
Jonathan B. Bunce is president,
with assets of over $14,000,000; the
Travelers, whose assets are over
$37,000,000, and of which the
late Mr. James G. Batter<son was
for many years, and Mr. Syl-
vester C. Dunham is now, the presi-

dent; the Connecticut General Life
and the Hartford, besides gen-
eral agencies of other companies.
The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspec-
tion and Insurance Company, of
which Mr. J. M. Allen is president,
is located here. The total assets of
Hartford insurance companies are
estimated to exceed $215,000,000.
Most of them have large and at-
tractive buildings near the central
square.

It is largely due to these interests
that the city has so many prosperous
banks, of which there are more
than a dozen, with a total capi-
tal of over $6,000,000, and a sur-
plus of about half that sum.
Among them, the Hartford Bank is the
oldest, chartered in 1792, and having
an interesting history. Others, with
the dates of organization, are as fol-
lows : Phoenix 1814, Connecticut Riv-
er 1825, Farmers and Mechanics 1833,
National Exchange 1834, State 1847,
City 185 1, American National 1852,
Charter Oak 1853, iEtna 1857, First
National 1857 and United States
1872.

To these may be added the Connec-
ticut Trust and Safe Deposit Com-
pany, the Hartford Trust Company,
the Security Company, the Society for
Savings, the Mechanics, State, Dime
and other savings banks.

Manufacturing may be said to have
begun at Hartford in 1788, when the
first broadcloth mill in the country
was erected, but it never became par-
ticularly identified abroad with the city
until 1856, when the Colt's Patent
Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company
was incorporated. Colonel Samuel
Colt was a native of Hartford and be-
gan to manufacture his revolvers in

662

THE CITY OF HARTFORD

From a photograph by Christopher Johnstone

Hon. Joseph R. Hawley

1848. This soon became a great indus-
try. An extensive tract in the south
meadows was reclaimed by a dike and
a large factory was built. The civil
war brought fire-arms into urgent de-
mand and the business thrived. Since
the death of Colonel Colt in 1862, oth-
ers have managed it, among them
General William B. Franklin. Here
was made the famous Gatling gun,
the invention of Mr. Richard J. Gat-
ling, for years a well-known resident.
In 1 82 1, Hartford parties began to
build engines and in 1853 tne Wood-
ruff Iron Works entered into a large
business. So from time to time other
manufacturing companies have been
established.

The Jewell Belting Company was
founded in 1849 by Mr. Pliny Jewell.
His son Pliny is now the president and
another son was the lamented Marshall

Jewell, Governor of Connecticut and
Postmaster General in President
Grant's cabinet.

Colonel Albert A. Pope more recent-
ly introduced the manufacture of the
Columbia bicycle, building extensive
factories for the purpose. The very
names of a number of corporations will
testify in behalf of the city's manufac-
tures: Pratt & Whitney Co., Hart-
ford Machine Screw Co., Pratt and
Cady Co., Electric Vehicle Co., Hart-
ford Rubber Works Co., National Ma-
chine Co., Hartford Woven Wire Mat-
tress Co., Sigourney Tool Co., Cape-
well Horse Nail Co., Johns-Pratt Co.,
Cushman Chuck Co., Dwight Slate
Machine Co., Plimpton Manufactur-
ing Co. and Billings and Spencer Co.
Many of these are located along the
Park River in commodious factories.

The first printing press in Hartford
was set up in 1764 by Thomas Green.
Ever since, the city has had more than
its share of a business now represented
by the Case, Lockwood and Brainard
Company, of which the late Leverett
Brainard was the president. Thomas
Green was the founder of the Connec-
ticut Courant, which is now the old-
est newspaper in the United States. Its
present editor is Mr. Charles Hopkins
Clark, Hartford's delegate to the Con-
stitutional Convention of 1902, and
Senator Joseph R. Hawley and Charles
Dudley Warner have both been asso-
ciated with it. The Hartford Times
was established in 18 17. It has owed
its development largely to the late
Hon. Alfred E. Burr, who was in
charge from 1839 until his death. The
other daily papers are the Post and the
Telegram. Among others who, as ed-
itors, have spoken in times past
through Hartford newspapers are:

THE CITY OF HARTFORD

663

William H. Burleigh, Joel Barlow,
Theodore Dwight, secretary and his-
torian of the Hartford Convention,
Colonel William L. Stone the histo-
rian, George D. Prentice, afterwards
editor of the Louisville Journal,
John G. Whittier, the poet, John M.
Niles, Hon. Gideon Welles, distin-
guished in President Lincoln's cabinet,
and Samuel Langhorn Clemens, best
known to his readers by his pseudo-
nym, "Mark Twain."

In educational matters the city of
Hartford has held an honorable place.
The late Hon. Henry Barnard, to
whom the public school system of the
country is greatly indebted, was one
of its citizens. Governor Edward Hop-
kins, dying in London in 1658, made
the first bequest, £400, to public educa-
tion in Hartford. Out of this arose
eventually the Hopkins Grammar
School, well known in its day, and
now merged in the Hartford Public
High School. This trust is intact and
amounts to $50,000.

Henry Barnard

In 1823 the Hartford Female Sem-
inary was established by Miss Cather-
ine E. Beecher. It continued its work
for over sixty years. One of the high-

From a photograph, copyright 1899, by Herbert O. Warner

Birthplace of Noah Webster

Trinity College

er educational institutions of Hartford
is Trinity College. It was incorpo-
rated as Washington College in 1823,
in response to the efforts of Rev.
Thomas C. Brownell, bishop of the
Episcopal Church in Connecticut, who
became its first president and whose
statue now adorns its ample campus.
On the present site of the Capitol two
brownstone buildings were erected the
following year. Here it prosecuted its
work until 1878 when its location
passed into the hands of the city. The
name of this institution was changed to
Trinity College in 1844. The traveller,
approaching Hartford from New

Rev. Geo. Williamson Smith,
President of Trinity College
664

York, notices its commanding build-
ings on the bluff southwest of the
city. Rev. Dr. George Williamson
Smith is the president of the college,
and in recent years its facilities have
been greatly increased and its stand-
ards raised. Revs. George W. Doane,
Horatio Potter, Samuel F. Jarvis and
John Williams have all been connected
with this institution and have become
bishops of the Episcopal Church. In-
deed the churches of that denomination
in Hartford have had as rectors no less
than seven men who have become bish-
ops,— Philander Chase, A. Cleveland
Coxe, W. C. Doane, Thomas M.
Clark, George Burgess, Jonathan M.
Wainwright and William F. Nichols.
The Pastoral Union of Connecticut
was organized in 1833 as the control-
ling body of the Theological Institute
of Connecticut, which was chartered
the year following and established at
East Windsor. This institution was
removed to Hartford in 1865, occupy-
ing buildings on Prospect Street. The
munificence of James B. Hosmer made
it possible later to erect its present ex-
tensive edifice on Broad Street, known
as Hosmer Hall. Rev. Dr. William
Thompson was for many years the
dean of its faculty and was succeeded
by President Chester D. Hartranft. It
now bears the name Hartford Theo-

THE CITY Oh HARTHORb

665

logical Seminary and, with its thir-
teen regular professors besides vari-
ous stated lecturers, has an extensive
influence among the Congregational
churches of the country. In connec-
tion with it is the Case Memorial
Library, containing 80,000 volumes,
founded by the late Newton Case.

Hartford is a city of churches. In
addition to the First and Second al-
ready mentioned, there are ten of the
Congregational order. The Third or
North Church was organized in 1824
and of this church Rev. Dr. Horace
Bushnell was the pastor from 1833 to
1859. It is now the Park Church. The
Asylum Hill and Farmington Avenue
churches are located in the western
and newer section of the city and the
Fourth is an institutional church sit-
uated on North Main Street. Of the
Baptist denomination, the First, South
and Asylum Avenue churches are
prominent, and among the Methodists

the First, South Park and North
churches. Christ Church is the old-
est Episcopal body in Hartford, dating
from 1786, and its dignified structure
on Main Street was consecrated in
1829. Saint John's Church was or-
ganized in 1 84 1 and Trinity Church,
located on the hill, in 1859. Hartford
became the Episcopal see of the Ro-
man Catholic Church of Connecticut
in 1843. The Right Rev. William Ty-
ler was the first bishop. There are now
five parishes in the city. Saint Joseph's
Cathedral on Farmington Avenue,
built of brownstone, was dedicated
in 1878 and it is a conspicuous and
impressive edifice. Right Rev.
Michael Tierney is the highly es-
teemed bishop of Hartford. Prob-
ably no city of its size in the coun-
try has been so free from religious
dissensions and has manifested
greater liberality in its Christian
fellowship.

L-»«t

..-

Hartford Theological Seminary

666

THE CITY OF HARTFORD

Mrs. Stowe

Some one has said that if every kind
of beneficent institution is not to be
found in Hartford, a mistake has been
made. There are certainly more than
a dozen buildings, some of them quite
extensive, engaged in various forms
of philanthropy and receiving the be-
nevolent support of the townspeople.
A legacy to any one of them would be
well placed, so good are their aims and
so ably are they managed. In the
southern section of the city is the Hart-
ford Hospital, "occupying an entire
block, with various wards, a training
school for nurses and the recently
erected Eliza Trumbull Robinson
Children's Hospital. Near at hand and
under the same management is the
Old People's Home. The Retreat for
the Insane has a spacious building,
and grounds beautifully laid out by
Frederick Law Olmstead, in the same
neighborhood. This institution was
founded in 1824 through the efforts
of the Connecticut Medical Societv,

when there were only two institutions
of the kind in this country. Its moving
spirit was Dr. Eli Todd. In 1865 the
Hartford Orphan Asylum was incor-
porated, being a union of the Female
Beneficent Society, organized in
1809, and an asylum for boys organ-
ized in 1829. Its home is in a fine
new building facing Pope Park in
the southwestern section of the city.
The Watkinson Farm School, which
was formerly near the Orphan Asy-
lum, now has a farm and buildings
on Albany Avenue, where it trains
deserving boys to useful manhood.
Associated with it are the Handi-
craft Schools.

The city has several Widows'
Homes and kindred institutions for the
needy. Its relief work for the poor is
largely intrusted to the Union for
Home Work, which has a well

Mrs. Sigourney

(Bust in Connecticut Historical Rooms)

THE CITY OF HARTFORD

667

equipped plant in the heart of the
poorer district, though much is done
through the almoners of the Larabee
and Niles funds. A thriving mission
work is carried on by the City Mis-
sionary Society, the agency of the Con-
gregational churches and the Open
Hearth is devoted to rescue work. One
of the buildings which always attracts
the visitor's attention is that of the
Young Men's Christian Association,
near the Memorial Arch and facing
Bushnell Park. The Women's Chris-
tian Association also has a building on
Church Street, and the Good Will

urally has the central offices of several
societies, such as the Connecticut Hu-
mane Society and the Missionary So-
ciety of Connecticut.

Mrs. Stowe's

Charles Dudley Warner's

Mark Twain's

Mrs. Sigourney's (in 1840)

(Connecticut Historical Society Rooms)

Club is the successor of the Hartford
Female Seminary on Pratt Street. As
the capital of the state, Hartford nat-

The American School for the Deaf
and Dumb is an institution of national
fame. In consequence of its former
name, the district where it is located
was called Asylum Hill. Incorporated
in 1815 and financially assisted by the
state and national governments, this
school has carried on its work success-
fully for the greater part of a century.
It has witnessed vast improvements in
such education since Thomas H. Gal-
laudet and Abbe Sicard's pupil,' Lau-
rent Clerc, entered the field.

The Wadsworth Athenaeum is the

668

THE CITY OF HARTFORD

John Trumbull

depository of Hartford's art, literary
and historic treasures. In 1842.
through the efforts of Daniel Wads-
worth, a corporation was formed for
the purpose of providing an art gallery

and at the same time furnishing rooms
for the Young Men's Institute and the
Connecticut Historical Society which
had been chartered in 1825. Two years
later the present building was complet-
ed. It has recently been enlarged and
now this corporation embraces in its
care the Art Gallery, the Public Li-
brary with its reading room, the Wat-
kinson Library of Reference, where
the rarest and most costly works in
many departments of learning may be
consulted, and the Connecticut Histori-
cal Society whose invaluable collec-
tions attract students and whose hall is
often the auditorium of the lecturer in
history. The art gallery contains some
fine paintings — it is hoped, the nucleus
of a larger collection in the future.
There are portraits by Sir Henry Rae-
burn, Bartholomeus Van Der Heist,
Thomas Sully, John S. Copley, John
Trumbull and Jared B. Flagg. Here

Battle of Princeton, by John Trumbull, in the Wadsworth Athenaeum

THE CITY OF HARTFORD

669

is Sir Thomas Lawrence's well-known
portrait of Benjamin West, and facing
it across the gallery is West's painting,
the "Raising of Lazarus," which was
until recently the altar piece of Win-
chester Cathedral and was presented
to the Athenaeum by one of its distin-
guished friends, J.Pierpont Morgan of
New York. Col. John Trumbull's en-
largements of his historical paintings
are in this gallery, — the "Declaration
of Independence," "Battle of Bunker
Hill," "Death of General Montgom-
ery," "Battle of Trenton" and "Battle
of Princeton." Among the other pic-
tures are Inness's "Autumn Gold,''
Constable's "The Ripe Cornfield," Co-
rot's "Landscape with Figure," and
Gainsborough's "The Broken Egg."

It is not presumed that the military
history of Hartford is more glorious
than that of other cities, but it has a
story to tell of heroes, reaching back to
Captain Thomas Bull, who fought in
the Pequot war and refused to hear
Sir Edmund Andros's proclamation at
Saybrook. The militia of the town in
the olden time were usually so equipped
as to be ready to drill a little and fight
hard, if necessary. In all the colonial
wars, as in the Revolution, a large part
of the active force came from these
troops. But soldiers had other uses
in those days, and the Governor's Foot
Guard was organized in 1772, with
Samuel Wyllys for its captain, to per-
form fitting escort duty on state occa-
sions. From that time to the present,
this company has had a continuous ex-
istence and through successive gener-
ations it has turned out in its
Grenadier uniforms to honor "Broth-
er Jonathan," Washington, Knox,
Lafayette, Rochambeau and a long
line of Presidents who have visited

Photograph loaned by R. S. Peck & Co.

Keney Tower

Hartford, as it will for any great
men yet to come. Since 1788 the
city has also been able to add
the escort of the Governor's Horse
Guard, and since 1858 that of the Put-
nam Phalanx in their continental buff
and blue. When the call of the Civil
War came, there was a goodly degree
of military spirit to draw on. But the
city's first volunteer was a young man
in the editorial chair of the Evening
Press — since well known in war and
peace, General Joseph R. Hawley.
Many were ready to follow his example
and within five days of the firing on
Fort Sumter, the Hartford bankers of-
fered the state a loan of half a million.
The Hartford City Guard furnished
the first three years' company which
was accepted by the government —
The First Heavy Artillery — to whom
a monument surmounted by a famous
mortar, the "Petersburg Express,"

670

THE CITY OF HARTFORD

Mark Twain
has been recently erected on the
Capitol grounds. More than four
thousand men enlisted from the
town — a number beyond its quota.
This roll contains such names as
General Griffin A. Stedman, whose
statue is now seen in the Campfield
Monument, Major Henry W. Camp,
whose life story has been told by
Chaplain Henry Clay Trumbull in
"The Knightly Soldier," Colonels
George S. Burnham, Levi Woodhouse,
George D. Chapman, Henry C. Dem-
ing, Theodore G. Ellis, Frank Beach,
George P. Bissell and Lieut.-Colonel
Daniel C. Rodman. In the navy Hart-
ford was represented by Commanders
Edward Terry and James H.Ward and
by the late Admiral Francis M. Bunce,
who returned to rest among the friends
of his native town. Of these, and many
others, the city is not forgetful, as the
Memorial Arch will testify.

Any one who becomes acquainted

with the city of Hartford will be im-
pressed with two facts which have had
much to do with its outward adorn-
ment, the esteem in which the people
hold their prominent citizens and the
royal munificence of those citizens to
their town. The beautiful area of for-
ty-two acres in the city's centre, which
bears the name of Horace Bushnell,
proclaims an appreciation of that citi-
zen who was the mover in reclaiming
it from a condition of slum and waste.
In its eastern section is Bartlett's stat-
ue of Dr. Horace Wells who, in 1844,
submitting to an operation, discovered
anaesthesia ; in the western part is the
Corning fountain designed by J. Mas-
see Rhind, with its figures in bronze
telling the story of the Indian's rela-
tions with the white man and on its
top a portrayal of the city's seal, the
hart crossing a ford. This was the gift
of Mr. John J. Corning.

Along the northern boundary of the
city is Keney Park having six hundred
and sixty-five acres of forest and

Charles Dudley Warner

THE CITY OF HARTFORD

671

meadow land. This is a legacy from
Mr. Henry Keney and the old home
where he and his brother Walter lived
has been marked by the Keney tower.
At the extreme western end is Eliza-
beth Park comprising one hundred
acres, so called in memory of Eliza-
beth Pond, the wife of the donor, Hon.
Charles M. Pond.

Near the manufacturing district
Colonel Albert A. Pope has given
Pope Park, a tract of ninety acres,
which is well provided with tennis
courts and a ball ground, and that
part lying along the river's bank is
shaded by an ancient grove. Farther
to the south, with its entrance op-
posite the Cedar Hill Cemetery —
Hartford's beautiful necropolis, un-
excelled in situation and rich in
monumental art — is Goodwin Park of
two hundred acres, appropriately
named in honor of Rev. Francis Good-
win, to whom more than any other
man the city's park system is indebted.
Among smaller areas, Sigourney
Square perpetuates the memory of
Mrs. Sigourney and Barnard Park
that of Hon. Henry Barnard. Riverside
Park of eighty acres is located on the
banks of the Connecticut River, con-
veniently near the populous tenement
district, and is provided with play
grounds, bath houses and a summer
school conducted by the Civic Club.

Every city which is well supplied
with good citizens is rich. Hartford
thinks more of such men than of any
reputation it may have abroad of being
the richest city of its size in the United
States. It has had of such many able
judges, four generations of William
Pitkins, William W. Ellsworth, Thom-
as S. Williams, Dwight W. Pardee
and Eligha Carpenter, and it still

has a worthy coterie of the living,
among them Hon. Nathaniel Shipman
of the U. S. District Court recently
retired. Well-known lawyers, such as
Thomas C. Perkins, Richard D. Hub-
bard and Henry C. Robinson, have
made Hartford their home. Among
its business men were once numbered
Governor Edwin D. Morgan, Junius
S. Morgan and Anson G. Phelps. So
in other spheres Hartford has cher-
ished traditions of those who once
walked its streets. John Fiske,
Frederick Law Olmsted, Edmund
Clarence Stedman and Dudley
Buck were natives of the town,
as was Noah Webster the lexi-
cographer, who was educated in
its schools. Hither John Trumbull
came in 1781 to practise law and
do some other things, and the year fol-
lowing he issued the first of more than
thirty editions of "McFingal," which
was famous in that day. Here, also,
Dr. Lemuel Hopkins as one of the
circle of "Hartford wits," which in-
cluded Trumbull, Humphreys and
Barlow and produced the "Anarchi-
ad," did most of his literary work.
Joel Barlow's "Vision of Columbus"
was largely written while he was ed-
iting the American Mercury in Hart-
ford, and there it was first published.
Political visions were -popular then.
Columbus's vision was rather weari-
some and he must have been refreshed
when

"Thy parent stream, fair Hartford, met his

eye,
Far lessening upward to the northern sky;
No watery gleams through happier valleys

shine,
Nor drinks the sea a lovelier wave than

thine."

For eleven years Samuel G. Good-

672

THE CITY OF HARTFORD

rich, "Peter Parley," was a resident of
this city, to which he came in 1811 and
where he found, as he afterwards
wrote in his "Recollections," "a high
tone of general intelligence and social
respectability." He contributed some-
thing in that direction himself as a
bookseller. John G. Whittier did some
of his earlier work while here and John
G. C. Brainard was also among the
citv's literary editors.

Mrs. Emma Hart Willard, a de-
scendant of Thomas Hooker and
widely read as an educational writer,
was for a time a resident. Until the
history of Catherine Beecher's school
is written no one will know what
genius was bred among her pupils. Sa-
rah Payson Willis, "Fanny Fern,"
was among them, so was Harriet
Beecher, of later fame, and Rose
Terry Cooke. Hartford has abounded
in historians and none has been so
worthy of the title as Dr. James
Hammond Trumbull, whose home
was on Asylum Avenue, next to that
of his gifted sister Annie Trumbull
Slosson.

As for homes, indeed, which are
held in reverence among the town's
people because of those who have lived
in them, there are some which every
schoolboy could point out. Overlook-
ing the busy city and within sight of
the rushing trains, is that where Lydia
Huntley Sigourney spent many years.

Its colonial glories are waning now
and it will soon be gone ; but it is not
needed to preserve the traditions of
that gracious lady who reigned among
the literati of her day as few have
since. Out to the westward, concealed
in the woodland he was so fond of, is
the home of Charles Dudley Warner,
an author too well known to need com-
ment, but a citizen who loved his
town and was honored by it above all
as a man. Near at hand is the cottage
from which the University of Min-
nesota stole Richard Burton to the re-
gret of many in Hartford. Then on
the same shaded street there is that of
Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose life
work may have been done elsewhere,
but whose memory is peculiarly in the
affectionate keeping of the neighbors
and friends who knew her in maturer
years.

So at last we come to the most wide-
ly known home in the city, that of
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, "Mark
Twain," half hidden among the trees
and behind its kitchen annex, which
he once called "an afterthought," but
interesting to all who have laughed at
his bidding and been blessed. It is
a good place to stop for the house
is tenantless. Still the people who
pass by are saying, "The world may
listen to him, New York may ban-
quet him, but Hartford will love him
for ave."

A Charity Case

By Julia Truitt Bishop

BEFORE he had spoken half
a dozen words, Dr. Allen
Murdock knew that he had
made a mistake ; and uncon-
sciously his voice took on a calmer
tone, and he straightened up a little.

"I see it is hopeless," he explained.
"I had really not meant to speak at
all. Of course I might have known
that I could have no chance. King is
far the better man. It is as it should
be. A man who has put away so
little money in his profession has no
right-"

And then Miss Lederley flashed
out at him.

"Has he any right to assume that
I would look down on poverty?" she
cried ; "I, who have been so poor?
Dr. Murdock — I thought you were at
least my friend!"

He bowed over her hand contritely.

"I am your friend," he' said.

And then, as he was not a man of
many words, he went back to his
office, a dull heartache with him. He
would try to take up the broken
threads where he had laid them
down, he said to himself bitterly, but
it would be in a different way. From
this time on he would give himself
over to the making of money, as
other men did. It filled him with
resentment, in that bitter hour, to
know that he had practised for four
or five years, and had been success-
ful, so that he might have made a

name for himself, as well as money,
yet he was still living in rented
rooms, and had almost nothing be-
yond his books and instruments, ft
was easy to know why. From the
first his practice had seemed to fall
to a large extent among the poor,
and he had given himself up to it
heart and soul. No matter — he
would seek a different class of pa-
tients from this time on. At any
rate, he would plunge into work —
thank God for work!

He smiled grimly to observe that
the first call which lay on his desk
was a charity call — to see some one
in the Home for the Homeless. The
most marvellous cures, performed by
a doctor who goes along dank alley-
ways and up rotting stairs to do
them, have an unpleasant way of
bringing in nothing in the way either
of money or general reputation, only
more charity practice, said Dr. Mur-
dock to himself, as he put on his
coat. But the Home for the Home-
less! Bad enough to be there, with-
out being sick too.

There was no infirmary in the
Home, — sick men were not expected
there, the manager told him with an
injured air. Indeed, this man had
no business there at all, for the Home
was for men who could work — and
look at him! And yet, he came to
the door and asked, and what were
you going to do? Turn him away:

673

674

A CHARITY CASE

But for him to be that way and sick!
The manager was always manifest-
ing softness of heart in emergencies
and regret on deliberation.

Dr. Murdock sat down beside one
of the beds in the common dormitory
and looked at a strange, scarred,
wrinkled face, with two bright eyes
twinkling up at him with a laugh in
them.

"I dunno whether you'll think it's
worth while, Doc," he said. "The*
ain't much of me left now."

There was a wheeze and a cough
that belied the twinkle in his eyes.
When Dr. Murdock reached under
the cover and drew out one of the
hands, he found that it, too, was
scarred, and three of the fingers were
bent down to the palm and could not
straighten. When he turned back
the ragged sleeve he saw that a long,
white scar ploughed up the thin arm.
When he touched the laboring chest
he found it projecting and misshapen.

"You've been through a good
deal," he said, with that something in
his voice that made the maimed and
the halt and the blind cling to him
so tenderly. "How did it happen?"

"Railroad accident," said the pa-
tient, with an odd twist in his face.
"I was skimming across the country
in my palace car — "

"Of course!" said the doctor with
a smile. He was feeling very ten-
derly across the broken breast.

"An' we had a collision, an' I come
out of it pretty badly disfigured.
Though I wasn't a beauty before,"
he hastened to explain with a new-
twinkle of the eyes. His first mis-
trust of a strange face had faded
away. Dr. Murdock was handling
him as gently as a woman.

"You know you shouldn't be
here," the doctor said, glancing
around the comfortless dormitory.
"Shall I ring up the ambulance and
have you taken to the hospital?
They can take so much better care
of you there."

The patient began to turn back the
cover, as preparing to arise. Mur-
dock's gentle hand on his chest
forced him down again, and the doc-
tor drew the cover back over the thin
shoulders.

"What is it now?" he asked.

"Well, I was in a hospital once, for
a good long time," he said between
the pauses of a cough. "I don't mind
dying myself, but I hate to see so
many other folks die. I've always
thought it oughtn't to be made so
public. If you'll let me I'll just go
on here an' die comfortable ; or I'll
go out an' find an empty box-car —
or slip out o' sight in one of the
parks — "

There was a ring of whimsical de-
termination in the wheezy voice.
The doctor had a sudden, pathetic
vision of the hospital patients lying
in their straight iron beds and seeing
so many other people die. With the
vision came the memory of the little
unused room back of his.

"Tell you what I'll do," he said
cheerily. "I've got a little room that
I don't use — right next to mine. I'li
fix you up in there. It'll be company
for me. It'll take an hour or two, I
suppose. Can you wait?"

The twisted face on the pillow
grew very solemn, and the eyes grew
very bright indeed. It was as though
the body of the man had been killed,
once upon a time, and nothing but
the eyes had survived.

A CHARITY CASE

075

"I can wait," he said. "I've done
a lot of waitin' in my time. The's
times I've thought that was all I was
made for."

In less than the time he had al-
lowed himself the doctor was back
with a carriage and blankets, and he
himself wrapped up the battered
something and carried it down. It
was not difficult. As the man him-
self had said, there wasn't much left
of him. A little later he was in-
stalled in comfort in the unused
room ; and then for the first time Dr.
Murdock thought to ask his name.

"Smith," said the patient with un-
moved countenance. "John Smith.
Don't know any of the others. No
kin to any of 'em."

And then for the next week Dr.
Murdock brought all his professional
skill to the aid of this unknown and
unrelated John Smith, who lay and
jested through it all. It was this un-
daunted spirit that would not die that
made it hard to see him sinking
away. Dr. Murdock watched and
worked with an eagerness difficult to
understand. Perhaps he did not un-
understand it himself. Perhaps if he
had given a little calm reasoning to
the matter he would have seen that
it were better to let the poor, bruised
body sink to rest now, while it could
do so naturally and painlessly, rather
than stretch it out longer on the
rough rack of this world. But Dr.
Murdock was not thinking of that.
He was thinking, perhaps, that he
must save this one life which seemed
to have been given into his charge,
so that he could forget Ruth Leder-
ley.

"You needn't worry so much about
it," said John Smith, watching hirn

with the eyes that had survived so
much. "I ain't hardly worth patch in'
up. It 'ud be like tryin' to mend a
beggar's rags, pretty much. Between
what the railroads mashed and what
the doctors couldn't find when they
was puttin' me together again, I ain't
much but a job lot."

But Dr. Murdock worked over him
as he had never worked before. It
had been two weeks since he had
come into the unused room, and he
could hobble crookedly across the
floor, Murdock supporting him, and
sit by the fire in the doctor's bed-
room. They sat thus in the dusk,
sometimes, when Dr. Murdock was
not called out. It came to him with
a pathetic sense of loneliness that he
was glad to have this poor, broken
creature near him, even when they
did not speak a word, because he
knew the preparations for the wed-
ding were going forward, and Ruth
would soon be lost even to his im-
aginings. When that thought
crowded in, his face grew very white,
and his lips were set. The sharp eyes
that twinkled through the dusk took
cognizance of this

"Well, you're a good doctor! I'm
glad you're not crippled, any way,"
said John Smith musingly one even-
ing. Dr. Murdock started and roused
himself from his own selfish commun-
ings.

"You have never told me how it
came about," he suggested kindly.

John Smith was looking at the fire.
That odd twist came over his face
again, and that was the only sign of
emotion.

"Got out of work," he said, in brief
and broken speech. "Couldn't get
anything to do — finally got out of

076

A CHARITY CASE

money, too — wife supportin' me and
the girl — couldn't stand that — so
started out to tramp or beat my way
to some other place. Beatin' my way
on a freight when collision came —
got mashed and scalded both. They
gathered up what was left of me an'
took me to a New York hospital. I
came out o' there like this. That
was ten years ago. I've been all this
time just driftin' an' driftin' back
this way. I was six years in a poor-
house, an' wanted to die there, — but
it took a long time to die, an' I
couldn't stand it out to the end."

"And what has become of your
family?" asked Murdock, startled.
"Do they know of your condition?"

The eyes that had been look-
ing into the fire suddenly flashed at
him.

"You don't suppose I'd go back —
like this — for a woman to take care
of all her days?" he asked, with a
voice that sent a thrill to the listener's
heart. "You don't think I'd even let
her know I was alive? No, no — I
managed that long ago. She was a
brave woman — Mary was — she
brought up the girl splendid — and
educated her — an' then Mary died.
Mary's sister's with Ruth — an' .1
suppose she's a big girl now — al-
most a young lady."

A note of something like horror
and amazement was in Dr. Murdock's
sudden question:

"Ruth? Ruth! Man, what is your
daughter's name?"

"You'll never tell," said the patient,
whose eyes were on the fire again.
"Her name's Ruth Lederley. She's
been independent, an' has took care
of herself and her mother, too, for
a while; but thank God she's never

had to support this little old battered
wreck sittin' here!"

Dr. Murdock's eyes had begun to
burn and his throat to ache. He
moved a little closer an<j. changed
the position of a pillow in the easy-
chair. "You don't know that Ruth
— that Miss Lederley has been very
rich for two years," he said. "A
grandmother — or some one — left her
everything."

"Yes, I heard," said Lederley. "I'm
gettin' a little tired — I believe I'll lie
down. I didn't go to her in her
poverty — an' I'll never go now — as if
I'd come to hang on her when I foun'
she had a little money. The only
thing I could do for my girl was to
keep out of her way — an' I've done
that."

Dr. Murdock supported the crip-
pled figure to the bed and covered it
from the cold, but he stood by it in
the darkness.

"Do you mean to say," he cried,
"that you could have gone home to
your wife and daughter any time
these ten years — and been taken care
of — and loved — yet you have beaten
around in box-cars— and poor-
houses — and Homes for the Home-
less—"

The doctor's Scotch ancestry had
denied him the gift of speech, and
the little he had to say was only elo-
quent in its broken crescendo of
horrors.

"Go away, boy," said a calm voice
from the bed. "You are young, yet.
Some day you'll love a woman that
much yourself."

And having told his story he was
weak, and lay very languid or asleep
for more days than the doctor liked
to count. The burden that Dr. Mur-

A CHARITY CASH

677

dock carried through them was not an
easy one. The wedding was at hand,
and brave arrangements were to-
ward, as" he knew. Should he tell the
happy bride in the midst of her prep-
arations that her father, a pauper
and worse for ten long years, lay
slowly dying in that little room, de-
pendent, unknown, unrecognized in
his martyrdom? For the moment he
had forgotten his own sorrow. His
passion of heartache for. the broken
man at his fireside sent him one day
to her very door, but he did not go
in. Instead he went back, accepting
this charge as his alone until the end
should come.

That evening he sat down by the
couch and laid his over that other
pitiful hand underneath the cover.

"Lederley," he said, "there's going
to be a fine church wedding to-mor-
row7 — palms and ferns and music and
all the rest of it. Do you think you
could go ? Suppose we smuggle our-
selves up into the organ loft and look
on!"

The eyes flashed up with sudden,
pleased interest.

"I should like to," he said simply.
"I've alw'ays wanted to see a real
fine weddin'. Mine an' Mary's was
about as plain as it could be; but
you know, if you love a girl you ain't
thinkin' much about the kind o' wed-
din' you' goin' to have."

"We'll go," said the doctor
bravely. "I'll wrap you up in my over-
coat and get you in before many of
the people come."

The prospect seemed to put unex-
pected strength into the weakening
body. He went to sleep that night
talking of it; and Murdock heard
him whisper in his sleep, —

"We didn't care — did we, Mary?"

With tireless patience the doctor
got him ready, and into the carriage,
and into the organ loft. There he
rallied and looked down with a kind
of wistful pleasure on the bowery
altar and the expectant throng.
When the wedding march sounded,
Murdock, whose face was white but
whose voice was steady, laid an arm
over the crooked shoulders.

"She is coming, Lederley," he said,
with a thrill. "Look, there she is —
all in white!"

The voice of the minister became
a subdued murmur up in that remote
nook. At the organ some one was
sending a song like a dream through
the marble arches. Everything else
was silence. Lederley leaned back
and closed his eyes.

"Look! — she is coming back!"
whispered a voice in his ear. "Can't
you give her a good wish, Lederley?
Can't you say, 'God bless you, little
bride'?"

"God bless you, little bride!" cried
Lederley obediently. His voice had
risen unexpectedly loud and clear,
and it pierced even through the happy
pulses that dulled her ears to mere
earthly sounds. She looked up and
saw the grave, white face of Dr.
Murdock, and another face with shin-
ing eyes beside it, and smiled at them,
and was gone.

From that moment Lederley grew
very weak, and sleep came upon him
with little warning. Murdock, getting
him once more into bed, found it
difficult to arouse him, but at last he
looked up.

"Lederley," Murdock was saying
with great tenderness, "that was
Ruth who was married a little while

678

THE FALL OF ROME

ago. Listen — you have seen your
little girl married ! I wanted you to
know."

A pleased smile flashed into the eyes.

"Ruth," he murmured "Little
Ruth! Strong an' fine — an' straight!
An' all in white. I'll tell Mary ! An'
I might 'a' spoiled her life for her if
I'd 'a' come back.- Even with the
money — he might not 'a' wanted to
have me around."

"I think he would have been proud
to have you — for he is a gentleman,"
said Murdock loyally.

"I wish it had been you," he mur-
mured drowsily. "There's not many
gentlemen — like you."

After a long time the hand that
had been clasping Dr. Murdock's re-
laxed. The doctor kissed it before
he laid it down on the broken
breast.

The Fall of Rome

By Arthur Chamberlain

ROME ruled in all her matchless pride,
Queen of the world, an empire-state;
Her eagles conquered far and wide ;
Her word was law, her will was fate.

Within her immemorial walls

The temples of the gods looked down;
Her Forum echoed with the calls

To greater conquest and renown.

All wealth, all splendor, and all might
The world could give, before her lay;

She dreamed not there could come a night
To dim the glory of her day.

Rome perished : Legions could not save,
Nor wealth, nor might, nor majesty ;-

The Roman had become a slave,
But the Barbarian was free !

New England Editors in the South

By George Frederick Mellen

THEODORE ROOSEVELT,
in his life of Thomas H.
Benton, speaking of the fact
that Benton was prepared
for the University of North Carolina
by a New Englander of "good ability,"
says : "Indeed, school teachers and ped-
dlers were, on the whole, the chief con-
tributions made by the Northeast to
the new Southwest." This is the
partial statement of a striking fact in
a characteristic way. In this limited
view, one who has given much study
to the history of the South will notice
the omission of jurists, lawyers, phy-
sicians and journalists, who, born in
New England, gave distinguished
honor and service to their adopted sec-
tion, and imparted a reflected glory to
that of their birth.

The remark of Mr. Roosevelt, there-
fore, gives a very inadequate idea of
the work and influence of the New
Englander in the South, such as were
manifest in ante-bellum days. The
truth is, from the dawn of the re-
public up to the time of Lincoln's elec-
tion, when the South's voice was a
dominant note in the councils of the
nation, when its political principles and
policy controlled largely the trend of
public events, the permanent value of
the New Englander's contribution to
its development and welfare is almost
altogether ignored in estimating the
formative and guiding influences of
this brilliant and thrilling period of

national history. It is safe to say
that in the forces that stood for moral
culture, intellectual development, high
civic ideals and political purity, no
leaven worked in the mass of human
thought and activity with more potent
and salutary effects. True, it was a
period of bartering in human flesh and
blood, of private brawls and dueling
escapades, of personal defamation and
vindictive vituperation, and in these
the New Englander had his full share ;
but that era knew no such things as
ballot box stuffing, defalcations in
office, and bribery and intimidation of
voters, the demoralizing blight of
which brings the blush of shame to the
patriot's cheek and threatens the life of
the republic.

Of occupations, that indicated by
the then synonymous terms, printer,
editor and journalist, was represented
by a coterie worthy of unstinted honor
and lasting praise. It is difficult to
note the hardships endured and the
success achieved by these men without
indulging in eulogy. In some of the
states they were the pioneers of the
"art preservative;" in many they were
called in great emergencies or for
special purposes; in all they left an
abiding impression. They illustrated
uniformly the zeal, enterprise, intelli-
gence, and enduring qualities of New
England. To-day, looking over the
list of influential journals in the South
and marking their longevity, one finds

679

680

NEW ENGLAND EDITORS IN THE SOUTH

this striking fact : While the great or-
gans which continued the oracles of
their respective parties for a genera-
tion or more, founded by native-born
Southerners and by foreigners, have
disappeared in name and many of them
from memory, some of those of the
same class and epoch founded by New
Englanders still existing, retain their
names wholly or in part, and are great
factors in the country's material de-
velopment and potent wielders of pub-
lic opinion. Gales and Seaton and the
Washington National Intelligencer,
Ritchie and the Richmond Enquirer,
Pleasants and the Richmond Whig,
Gales and the Raleigh Register, Pinck-
ney and the Charleston Mercury, Fell
and the Savannah Republican, Penn
and the Louisville Advertiser, Barks-
dale and the Mississippian, and Bayou
and the New Orleans Bee are names
that linger in memory or stand out in
history as the reminders and ex-
emplars of a mighty past. On the
other hand, Abell and the Baltimore
Sun, Willington and the Charleston
Courier, Townsend and the Mobile
Register, Prentice and the Louisville
Journal, Kendall and the New Orleans
Picayune and Hunt and the Nashville
Banner attest the enterprise of New
Englanders and the persistency of New
England institutions.

Other contemporaneous journals of
prominence, often quoted by reason of
their influential position, breadth of
view, and boldness of policy, and
edited by New Englanders, were the
Nashville Union, edited by Jeremiah
George Harris, and later by E. G. East-
man ; Kentucky Argus, by Amos Ken-
dall; Mobile Advertiser, by C. C.
Langdon ; Wilmington Commercial by
Thomas Loring; Carolina Gazette, by

E. S. Thomas; New Orleans Crescent,
by J. W. Frost, and New Orleans
Tropic, by T. B. Thorpe. These are
accompanied by a number of lesser
lights ; and if the sons of New England
parentage in the South were included,
it would swell the list and give it ad-
ditional distinction.

With such an array of New England
journalists it is no idle curiosity that
prompts a study of the influences and
movements which brought them to the
South, and a closer inquiry into the
parts played by them upon this new
stage. To give' with any fulness of
detail an account of their labors, suc-
cess and influence is a task beset with
many difficulties ; to determine with
critical accuracy the value of their
services to the adopted home awaits
the pen of some painstaking historian.
In pursuing the search over so wide a
field of investigation and stretch of
time it would not be right to say that
it was like hunting needles in hay-
stacks, for this would be tantamount
to saying that their contributions to
the life and thought of the South were
not worthy of record ; nor would it be a
true description of the relation sus-
tained to their environment to say that
they were like nuggets of gold found
here and there in her life currents, for
this would disconnect them from the
life about them, which they touched
and influenced at so many points. It
would be more fitting to speak of them
as tributary streamlets to the great cur-
rents of thought and action that
sweetened and enriched the life of the
old South. However this may be, the
results gleaned may well be viewed
with gratifying pride by lovers of
New England history and traditions.

Beginning at Baltimore and follow-

NEW ENGLAND EDITORS IN THE SOUTH

681

ing them along the beaten highways
to the Ohio river, and then clown its
course to the Mississippi river and
New Orleans, or keeping the great
ocean pathway and observing them
from seaport to seaport, until the same
destination is reached, they are found
working with the same dauntless
spirit and with the same large achieve-
ment.

The third editor of Maryland in
point of time, the pioneer of the Bal-
timore press and the editor of the
largest enterprise in the early history
of the state, was William Goddard, a
native of Connecticut. After editing
the Pennsylvania Chronicle at Phila-
delphia for a few years, in 1773 he vis-
ited Baltimore, where he was promised
hearty cooperation and liberal support,
provided he would publish a paper in
that city. The outcome was the found-
ing of the Maryland Journal and Bal-
timore Advertiser. The general ap-
pearance and varied contents of the pa-
per were highly creditable to the pro-
jector and gave him the reputation of
being the most enterprising editor of
his day. To furnish an efficient news
' service and to offset British censorship,
he established a postal system between
his paper and Philadelphia and so in-
creased its facilities as, in the end, to
have a perfect system of communica-
tion from Maine to Georgia. As a
merited reward Benjamin Franklin,
Postmaster General of the Colonies,
appointed him Surveyor of Post Roads
and Comptroller of Post Offices.

For lively sensations and thrilling
episodes it is probable that Goddard's
career is more noted than that of any
other editor in early American journal-
ism. While protesting his friendli-
ness for the American cause, he pub-

lished communications favoring the
British side, and thus stood for a free,
untrammelled press. His attitude
brought upon him grievous troubles
and humiliating persecution. On two
occasions he was driven out of Balti-
more, and in the latter instance the ex-
pulsion was protracted. In his absence
the paper was most acceptably con-
ducted by his sister, Miss Mary K.
Goddard, an enterprising woman
worthy of a conspicuous niche in the
memorial temple of the press. After
the declaration of peace Goddard re-
turned from exile and resumed con-
trol of the paper. Several. years after-
wards he sold an interest to his brother-
in-law and fellow New Englander,
James Angell, who, in 1792, bought
the entire establishment.

There were many other New Eng-
enders connected with the Maryland
press during this period, but of these
by far the most noted in the list and
one of the most illustrious in American
journalism was Arunah S. Abell, a
native of Rhode Island and founder of
the Baltimore Sun. His bold initiative,
daring enterprise, business sagacity,
and successful achievement are fit-
tingly commemorated by the Wiscon-
sin Historical Society, in its annotated
catalogue of newspaper files, thus sum-
marizing the history of the Sun : "First
one-cent daily in Baltimore; estab-
lished May, 1837, by Arunah S. Abell,
of Philadelphia Ledger; organized first
carrier pigeon express; received first
presidential message sent by telegraph,
May, 1846; first to announce to the
United States Government the capitu-
lation of Vera Cruz, April, 1847 > occu-
pied (1851) first iron building erected
in the United States; first paper to
make successful use of type-revolving

682

NEW ENGLAND EDITORS IN THE SOUTH

presses (1852) ; introduced the carrier
system into Baltimore."

In 1836 three young printers —
Swain, Abell, and Simmons — who
were at work on the penny press in
New York, started a similar enterprise
in Philadelphia. This was the be-
ginning of the Public Ledger. They
were soon firmly on their feet, and the
next year Abell saw excellent oppor-
tunities in Baltimore for repeating
their success. Going thither and con-
ferring with the heads of old estab-
lished journals, he met with no en-
couragement. The critical financial
situation and the widespread business
depression were ominous of disaster.
Discouraging advice and gloomy
prophecy did not shake belief in the
feasibility of the scheme. Returning
to Philadelphia he recommended the
undertaking: the partners diffidently
yielded upon condition that he assume
the management : the Sun appeared
May 17, 1837; and at the outset re-
sults justified the wisdom of the step.

With constantly growing subscrip-
tions and with ever increasing pros-
perity the Sun moved its quarters sev-
eral times for better accommodations
and greater facilities ; with character-
istic energy and enterprise Mr. Abell
directed the policy of the paper until
1878, when he entrusted its manage-
ment to his sons. At heart a South-
ern sympathizer, he guided it through
the four years of the Civil War with
great tact in the midst of onerous
duties and perplexing cares. In 1888,
at the age of eighty-two, he died, as
full of honors as he was of years.

In Washington the leading journals,
as the makers of platforms and the ad-
visers ot presidents, were in a strict
sense the organs of parties and admin-

istrations. Their editors had a wide
and respectful audience. Glancing
over their names, for more than half a
century it will be seen that there is
listed no New Englander of promi-
nence save one, whose brief editorial
career in charge of the Buchanan organ
is without special significance. This
was John Appleton, a native of Massa-
chusetts and a graduate of Bowdoin
College.

Coming to Virginia in the quest, we
find a like dearth of New England
editors who cast in their lot perma-
nently with that State. A State which
could furnish the nation with presi-
dents needed not to go outside of its
own bounds for editorial material.
From Washington and Richmond, as
intellectual and political centres, the
Virginian delighted in the fulminations
of his own kith and kin. Ritchie,
Seaton, Johnston, Blair, Rives, Pleas-
ants and Daniel — all noted ante-
bellum editors — were native Virgin-
ians. At an early date a few New
England editors tried their fortunes in
Virginia, but soon migrated. After
the Revolutionary War Nathaniel Wil-
lis, grandfather of the poet N. P. Wil-
lis, sold the Independent Chronicle of
Boston, and became a pioneer journal-
ist in the then West. After a twelve
years' experience in publishing papers
in three Virginia towns — Winchester,
Shepherdstown and Martinsburg — he
transferred his interests to Ohio.

In 1817 and 1818 Charles Prentiss,
a native of Massachusetts and a grad-
uate of Harvard College, edited the
Virginia Patriot in Richmond. A pio-
neer in choosing and leading the lit-
erary life, his career is both unique and
interesting. An accurate scholar, a
graceful writer and a judicious critic,

NEW ENGLAND EDITORS IN THE SOUTH

683

from graduation in 1795 up to his
death in 1820, he was a frequent con-
tributor to such magazines and periodi-
cals as gave any encouragement to lit-
erary effort. He edited various pa-
pers in Boston, Baltimore, Washing-
ton and elsewhere, leading apparently
a Bohemian life. Dedicating his life
to literature at this barren period of
literary production, and barely deriv-
ing a support from the sale of his lit-
erary wares, the story of his struggles
is filled with a pathetic interest.

Kentucky, as a territorial offshoot
from Virginia, is called a daughter,
and her population came largely from
the Mother State. However, those
representative New England editors
who settled in the State did not come
by way of Virginia, but floated down
the Ohio river from Pittsburg to their
several destinations. The most fa-
mous name in Southern journalism is
George D. Prentice. Long before he
had immigrated to the State and
founded the Louisville Journal, Ken-
tucky had known and felt the influence
of the New England element in every
department of human activity. The
credit of being the pioneer editor from
New England belongs to Samuel Vail,
a native of Vermont. At Louisville,
then better know as Falls of Ohio, in
1 80 1 he established the Farmers' Li-
brary or Ohio Intelligencer,. . It is an
interesting fact that he accompanied
the notorious Matthew Lyon and his
colony from Vermont to Kentucky, and
printed his paper on the press and with
the type used by Lyon in publishing
that famous paper in Vermont entitled
the Scourge of Aristocracy and Repos-
itory of Important Political Truths.
While not a native of Vermont, hav-
ing been born in Ireland, Lyon, as a

boy unable to pay his passage money,
was sold to a Vermont farmer by the
captain of the vessel on which he had
come to America. Under Vail's man-
agement the Farmers' Library con-
tinued for seven years, when a more
vigorous publication pushed it to the
wall. The editor then entered the army,
became first lieutenant, took part in the
battle of New Orleans, and after hav-
ing been brevetted major for gallant
conduct was mustered out of service.
Settling in Louisiana he became a pros-
perous merchant, was engaged exten-
sively in sugar planting and manufac-
turing, and owned many slaves. After
a time reverses overtook him and he
disappeared from public view.

With the languishing of New Eng-
land commerce from the effects of the
war of 1812, there was a large influx of
New Englanders into the Southwest in
search of better fortunes. Among these
was Amos Kendall, a native of Massa-
chusetts and a graduate of Dartmouth
College. After reading law he went
to Kentucky to settle, and there taught
a year in the family of Henry Clay. In
1 81 5, admitted to the bar and begin-
ning his career at Georgetown, being
pressed by influential politicians he was
induced to edit the local paper, the
Minerva Press. Within the space of
a year he had been associated with
four papers, the Press, the Georgetown
Patriot, the Religious Intelligencer,
and the Frankfort Argus of Western
America. It was with the last named
that his editorial reputation was made.
In the latter part of 1816, while visiting
Frankfort, the capital, he was urged to
buy an interest in the Argus, the State
paper, and to take editorial charge. The
field was inviting, the temptation
strong, and he yielded. The law was

684

NEW ENGLAND EDITORS IN THE SOUTH

not congenial to his tastes. Now at
the beginning of the "era of good feel-
ing," when political distinctions seemed
less marked and personal rancor less
fierce he thought he saw an opportun-
ity for the discussion of principles and
measures in a spirit free from preju-
dice and bitterness, and for indulging
his literary tastes. The sequel will
show how much he was mistaken in
judgment. Himself a full-fledged re-
publican, he fought federalism with
ungloved hands. Federal office-hold-
ers and federal journalists he attacked
with the zeal and zest of a born con-
troversialist. With William G. Hunt,
a fellow New Englander and a gradu-
ate of Harvard College, who edited at
Lexington the Western Monitor, the
organ of federalism, he began a spir-
ited controversy which ended in per-
sonalities and the rupture of friendly
relations. Yet a public of many well
informed persons believed that the two
"Yankees" were quarreling for politi-
cal effect and personal amusement. In
this and in all other controversies
he showed great fertility of resources,
though he did not always escape per-
sonal violence and physical injury. His
most serious affair was with another
New Englander, John H. Farnham, a
Harvard man, who edited the Frank-
fort Commentator, a federalist paper.
Kendall retained his connection with
the Argus until called by Andrew Jack-
son to become Fourth Auditor of the
United States Treasury. Though his
active service in political journalism
now ceased, his ready pen was fre-
quently employed in advocating party
measures. When the Washington
Globe was striking its hardest and
most effective blows in behalf of
Jackson's administration, he was, by a

hostile press, derisively termed "the
high priest of the Magi" of the
Globe.

Another worthy representative of
New England connected with the Ken-
tucky press was Edwin Bryant, from
Massachusetts. Going to the state early
in life he became editor of the Ken-
tucky Reporter, which was later con-
solidated with the Lexington Observer,
and afterwards of the Louisville Dime.
Because of bad health he abandoned
journalism and joined Fremont in his
overland expedition to California,
where he was the first American to
administer justice on the Pacific
slope. A book published by him on
"What I Saw in California" enjoyed
great popularity.

While Vail as a pioneer editor, Ken-
dall as a doughty controversialist, and
Bryant as a graceful writer have won a
permanent place in the journalistic an-
nals of Kentucky, George D. Prentice's
long and distinguished career has
given them a peculiar flavor and
marked distinction. Born in Connec-
ticut and graduated at Brown Univer-
sity, after a brief editorial career in
Hartford, he went to Kentucky for the
purpose of writing a campaign life of
Henry Clay. In doing so, far from
his original intentions, he found the
field and opportunity of his life's work.
In November, 1830, having completed
successfully the biography, he launched
the Journal upon the tempestuous sea
of journalism. By fearlessness of ut-
terance, brilliancy of wit, spiciness of
retort, sharpness of satire, pungency of
sarcasm and courage of conviction, he
carried its name and influence into
every corner of the Union and made it
known abroad. For nearly forty years
he guided the fortunes and policy of

NEW ENGLAND EDITORS IN THE SOUTH

685

this favored child of his brain and
genius. Uniformly its columns were
marked by a variety of contents, a
breadth of discussion and a purity of
style that won immediate favor or at-
tention. By his careful oversight of
details, his refined use of language, and
his judicious estimate of literary taste
and merit, he gave the paper a unique
and an enviable position among jour-
nals.

Apart from the encouragement he
bestowed upon literary workers, apart
from the political battles he fought and
the industrial movements he fostered,
and apart from the permanent contri-
butions he made to the anthology of
American poetry, Prentice's name will
be longest remembered for the bril-
liancy of his wit and for the pungency
of his sarcasm. A few examples from
"Prenticeana," a book in which hun-
dreds of his epigrams were collected,
will serve to illustrate how happy were
these sparks from the anvil of his
brain :

"The New Haven Herald says: 'Does
the editor of the Louisville Journal suppose
he is a true Yankee because he was born
in New England? If a dog is born in an
oven, is he bread?' We can , tell the editor
that there are very few dogs, whether born
in an oven or out of it, but are better bred
than he is."

"A Tennessee editor charges that the
Mississippians, as a general rule, can
stand dunning better than any people he
ever saw. We suppose they have lived so
long in a mosquito country that they don't
mind being bored by bills."

"The editor of the Statesman says more
villainy is on foot. We suppose he has
lost his horse."

"The editor of speaks of his ly-
ing curled up in bed these cold mornings.'
This verifies what we said of him some
time ago — 'he lies like a dog.' "

In bis last years Prentice knew much

sorrow. He was uncompromisingly
loyal to the Union and fought South-
ern secession with fiery zeal and un-
abated vigor, thereby keeping Ken-
tucky in the Union ; but other members
of his family became intensely South-
ern in their sympathies. His two sons
allied their fortunes with the Confed-
eracy, the younger sealing his devotion
with his life's blood.

With the scathing denunciation and
vehement invective of which he was
master and which he could pour out
with crushing effect upon a rival press
or an opposing party, as a matter of
course, he was involved in personal
difficulties. Never a duellist, but
openly and unequivocally opposed to
the code, still he was called to the field
of honor ; but he always refused in dig-
nified language and courageous spirit
to accede to the demands of what was
deemed in his day an imperious man-
date, and that without suffering any
loss of confidence and respect. In thus
doing, he did much to correct a mis-
guided public sentiment, cherished
longest at the South, which depreciated
true heroism and idealized false cour-
age. He died in 1870, the best loved
and the least hated of Southern jour-
nalists. • \ \

As printers and editors, true to their
Bohemian tastes and migratory habits,
dropped down from Kentucky into
Tennesse, it is well to ascertain next
what part the New Englander played in
the journalism of this State. Its pioneer
editor was George Reulstone, a native
of Boston. Soon after the organiza-
tion of the territory Governor William
Blount introduced the printing press,
inducing Roulstone to emigrate from
North Carolina, where, in Fayetteville,
he had printed the North Carolina

6S6

NEW ENGLAND EDITORS IN THE SOUTH

Journal. The Knoxville Gazette ap-
peared November 5, 1791. The most
interesting fact in Roulstone's career
was that he published and controlled
three papers in Knoxville at the same
time — the Gazette, the Register, and
the Genius of Liberty. His useful and
exemplary life closed in 1804.

In 1822 the National Banner was es-
tablished at Nashville by two Bos-
tonians, William G. Hunt and
John S. Simpson. Hunt, as has
been already shown, began his
journalistic career in Kentucky. Until
his lamented death in 1833, he con-
tinued to direct the Banner. In his last
years a brother, W. Hassell Hunt, was
associated with him. Hunt was a lit-
erary critic of no mean ability, and es-
tablished the first purely literary maga-
zine in the Southwest. In his efforts
to build up a high standard his criti-
cisms were not always received with
a humble and appreciative spirit. In
1832 a Tennessee novel appeared,
which he reviewed with great severity
and caustic wit. In the Knoxville
Register a writer replied, espousing
heartily the cause of "this unassuming
novel containing many fine descriptions
and highly interesting passages," and
characterized the review as "pert, un-
feeling, impudent, insulting to his
(Hunt's) readers, a disgrace to the col-
umns of his paper, dishonorable, dis-
ingenuous, and above all unjust."

If one familiar with the history
of the Tennessee press be asked to
name its most famous editor, the
will be Jeremiah
who was a native
He enjoyed the
being an editorial
pupil of Prentice while in Connecti-
cut, and was said to have imbibed

ready answer
George Harris,
of Connecticut,
reputation of

much of his wit and cunning from that
celebrated source. His coming in 1839
is associated with the most strenuous
and exciting campaign in Tennessee's
history. Its politics had suffered a
complete revulsion in the utter over-
throw of the Democratic party in 1836.
This meant a practical repudiation of
Jackson in his own State, and was a
stigma galling to his pride. The State,
in the eyes of the old chieftain, must be
redeemed. James K. Polk, then Speak-
er of the United States House of Rep-
resentatives, was fixed upon as the
leader in so important and critical a
struggle. Accepting the call and chosen
candidate for governor, he, following
the example of Jackson in his presi-
dential tactics, turned to the press as a
strong source of power and an effective
weapon in political battle.

Polk had wonderful sagacity where
the fitness of men for special work was
concerned. This faculty was never
more happily exhibited than in the
choice of the two editors whom he
brought into the State to aid him in
wresting it from the grasp of the
Whig party. These were Jeremiah G.
Harris and Elbridge G. Eastman, the
latter from New Hampshire. Harris
at Nashville, editing the Union, and
Eastman at Knoxville, in charge of the
Argus, were the two strong arms that
helped him to win victory. At the out-
set Harris found the press and the gen-
eralship of the State arrayed with the
opposition. The leaders who had re-
volted against the tyranny of Jackson
had once been his strongest supporters.
Harris began by publishing their
speeches defending Jackson and his
policy, and glaringly placed these be-
fore the public as fine specimens of po-
litical somersaults. This he called his

NEW ENGLAND EDITORS IN THE SOUTH

687

"looking glass." He reproached John
Bell with being an abolitionist, the
basest opprobrium that could be heaped
upon a Southerner. As an answer his
foremost antagonist, Allen A. Hall,
editor of the Banner, procured files of
the paper Harris had edited in New
Bedford, Massachusetts, and pointed
out editorials strongly squinting
towards abolitionism. With haughty
disdain, virulent abuse and pungent-
ridicule, he met the assaults of his ene-
mies, never abating one whit the inten-
sity and the rapidity of his fire into
their ranks. By shrewd tactics and
countless anecdotes he aroused the en-
thusiasm of his friends, and kept it at a
feverish heat. Thus followers were
cheered, converts won and foes dispir-
ited. Some idea of the enthusiasm
enkindled by the victorious campaign
may be realized from the opening of an-
address of welcome to Governor Polk
afterwards at a middle Tennessee fes-
tival. A minister of the gospel chosen
for this delightful task began thus:
"Governor Polk: We have come to-
gether today — this goodly company —
to pay homage to the mountain nymph,
sweet Liberty, as represented in your
official capacity and citizenship !"

In the presidential year following,
Harris conducted an equally spirited
campaign, though it was not so effec-
tive, for Tennessee gave her electoral
vote to William Henry Harrison.
However, he had made a national repu-
tation. After his break with the Whigs
Tyler invited Harris to Washington to
edit the Madisonian, but the proffer
was refused. He was substantially
rewarded with an office, and made
commercial agent of the United States
for Europe. Returning in 1844, he
resumed his old place at the helm of the

Union, and fought valiantly for the
head of the Democratic presidential
ticket. His skill and energy had con-
tributed most in making Polk a presi-
dential possibility. It was natural,
therefore, that he should have been in-
vited to Washington to edit the official
organ ; but he refused and was re-
warded with the life position of pay-
master in the navy.

Eastman, though in a more limited
field, wrought almost as effectively in
East Tennessee as his compatriot did in
a far wider sphere. His services were
likewise rewarded with a government
position at Washington ; but the party
needed his pen for important political
contests in the State. Consequently,
he was called to edit the Union soon
after Harris had relinquished his con-
nection, and he continued its head until
his death in 1859. Not only as a po-
litical writer did he make his mark, but
also as a ceaseless advocate of im-
proved agriculture and a devoted
friend to the mechanical arts.

In going from Virginia to Kentucky
the natural order is pursued in pro-
ceeding from mother to daughter ; but
to go from Tennessee to North Caro-
lina is reversing this order. With no
large cities and with no compact popu-
lation North Carolina had no papers of
great prominence. Possibly the only pa-
pers of national reputation were the
Raleigh Register, founded by Joseph
Gales, Sr., an Englishman, and the
Raleigh Standard, founded by Thomas
Loring, a native of Massachusetts. In
1843 Loring sold his paper to W. W.
Holden, who had acquired his first
newspaper experience in the office of
Dennis Heartt, from Connecticut, own-
er and editor of the Hillsboro Recorder.
After the sale of the Standard, Loring;

688

NEW ENGLAND EDITORS IN THE SOUTH

went to Wilmington where he edited
the Commercial. He and Heartt were
ranked among the leading editors of
the State.

To go from North Carolina to South
Carolina is to go from a comparative
dearth of New England editors to a
large and powerful aggregation of
them. The wealth and culture of South
Carolina and its metropolis, Charles-
ton, held out great attractions and sub-
stantial inducements to northern men
of thrift and enterprise. Of the New
England contingent the most promi-
nent by reason of long service, large
enterprise, and versatile parts was
Aaron S. Willington, founder of the
Charleston Courier. Born in Massa-
chusetts, early in life he went to
Charleston upon the invitation of a fel-
low New Englander, Loring Andrews,
to establish a paper to supply the place
of the defunct State Gazette. The re-
sult was the Charleston Courier, in
January, 1803. After three years An-
drews relinquished his interest.
Thenceforward, with a faith and cour-
age rarely surpassed, Willington con-
tinued his business and editorial rela-
tions with the paper until his death in
1862.

Under Willington the Courier il-
lustrated progressive journalism, en-
joying unquestionably the reputation
of being the most enterprising among
the Charleston papers. Getting the
idea from Samuel Topliff and Henry
Ingraham Blake of Boston, he trans-
ferred to the South the practice of
boarding vessels far out to sea for the
purpose of gathering news and placing
it first before his readers. At the time
when uprisings and insurrections were
rife in Spain and her American depen-
dencies, and intelligence was conveyed

through papers published at Havana in
Spanish, he secured them from passing
vessels and employed James Gordon
Bennett to translate for the Courier.
Thus he gave that noted editor his first
serious newspaper experience in Amer-
ica, and possible hints and lessons by
which the New York Herald profited
greatly in after years. In all enter-
prises he was aided by an able corps
of assistants, partners and editorial
writers, who had a large share in the
Courier's fame and success. These in-
cluded men of established reputations
in professional life, in literature and in
politics, among whom Richard Yeadon
and William S. King, co-editors and
co-partners, deserve special recog-
nition. In politics the Courier, from
avowed federalism, from fighting for
union against nullification, from es-
pousing Whig principles, came before
Fort Sumter was fired on, to print un-
der its heads the words, "Confederate
States of America."

Other New Englanders on the staff
of the paper were Henry M. Cushman,
who went from the Boston Times, and
J. L. Hatch, from Maine, both men of
energy and talents, who wrote tersely,
cleverly and caustically. Contempo-
rary with Willington, though not
connected with the Courier, were other
editors from New England. E. S.
Thomas was editor and publisher of
the City Gazette ; Samuel H. Skinner
bought from Thomas the Gazette;
S. R. Crocker was editorially connect-
ed with the Standard; Mrs. Caroline
Gilman edited the Rosebud; Daniel K.
Whitaker edited the Southern Quar-
terly Review and was succeeded by
John M. Clapp, who subsequently was
editorially associated fifteen years with
the Charleston Mercury. These made

NJbW ENGLAND EDITORS IN THE SOUTH

689

enduring names in South Carolina
journalism. Benjamin Gildersleeve
and Stephen Olin, both graduates of
Middlebury College, were prominent
names connected with the religious
press of the State. When to these
names are added those of distinguished
Carolinians who did editorial work,
such as William Gilmore Simms, the
Rhetts, Pinckneys and Legares, it is
safe to say that no other Southern press
surpassed that of Charleston in the
ability, culture, enterprise and ag-
gressiveness of its journalists. That
such talents were not always directed
to the ends of stable government and
did not fulfil the demands of far-
sighted statesmanship, it is now too
late to regret.

More than any other State, Georgia
has illustrated the New England spirit
of enterprise. In its early history
New England teachers, preachers and
merchants were numerous and con-
spicuous. One of its two signers of
the Declaration of Independence was
Lyman Hall; the father of the State
University was Abram Baldwin, and
the University's first president was
Josiah Meigs — all from, Connecticut.
Yet there are found the names of but
two New Englanders prominently con-
nected with the press of the state.
These were I. K. Tefft, from Rhode
Island, the public-spirited editor of the
Savannah Georgian, whose title to
fame is strengthened by the fact that
he founded the Georgia Historical So-
ciety, and Melvin Dwinell, from Ver-
mont, who edited the Rome Courier.

It means no disparagement of his
contemporaries to say that Thaddeus
Sanford was easily Alabama's most
prominent and influential editor. For
the twenty-six years of his ownership

the Mobile Register was the oracle of
the Democratic party. A native of
Connecticut, after a brief business ca-
reer in New York city, he went to Mo-
bile and merchandised. In 1828 he
bought the Commercial Register, and
at once infused new life into its col-
umns. It bespoke the good judgment
of its editor that, like Prentice and
Willington, he succeeded in enlisting
as editorial writers and contributors
many of the first men of the State in
letters and in public life. For a num-
ber of years he was warmly supported
by Samuel F. Wilson, who was a part-
ner during much of the time of their
association. Wilson was a native of
Connecticut and an honor graduate of
Columbia College. After giving six-
teen years to Mobile journalism he
went to New Orleans, where he became
permanently identified with the Pica-
yune. Another editorial associate was
A. B. Meek, Alabama's most accom-
plished man of letters under the old
regime.

In his policy Sanford endeavored to
give to education, morals, commerce
and agriculture their proportionate
share of attention, along with general
and local politics. In the nullification
struggle he opposed South Carolina
and supported strongly the Union. He
defended ardently the institution of
slavery within the guarantees of the
Constitution, and deprecated the aboli-
tion movement as the outcome of a
blind and lawless fanaticism. When
the storm of war burst forth upon the
country, his support and sympathy
were given unhesitatingly to the home
of his adoption. His career was un-
usually free from the bitter personali-
ties of the time. Himself always the
high-minded, courteous opponent, he

690

NEW ENGLAND EDITORS IN THE SOUTH

gave the honest opinions of others due
respect ; and in his columns he permit-
ted no coarse epithets and reproachful
taunts as substitutes for appeals to
reason. His death in 1867, long after
he had laid aside the editorial toga,
ended a life which, while not so illus-
trious, was as useful and honorable as
that of any other son given by New
England to the South.

From the same State and having in
some respects an identical career with
Sanford was Charles C. Langdon, who
went South in early manhood and
prospered in business. Having suf-
fered reverses in the financial crash of
1837, he entered politics. The next
year he was nominated by the Whig
party for the legislature and defeated.
However, he made so able and vigor-
ous a canvass as to attract the attention
of party leaders, who at once purchased
the Whig organ, the Mobile Adver-
tiser, and entrusted its editorial man-
agement to him. Making it a powerful
vehicle for moulding public opinion,
at the following elections he was tri-
umphantly elected, and succeeded in
strengthening very materially his party
in a State where it always fought an
up-hill fight. During the years of his
editorship he made his paper the lead-
ing organ of the Whig party in Ala-
bama. In i860 he supported Bell and
Everett and the Union ; but when Ala-
bama seceded, he allied himself with
the State and sought by tongue and pen
to inspire her people with courage and
confidence. In his last years, as agri-
cultural editor of the Register, he did
much to bring about improved methods
in the tillage of the soil and in the di-
versification of crops.

Though a fact little known, it is
none the less interesting that Dr. F. A.

P. Barnard, who was a distinguished
president of Columbia College, was for
a time engaged in editorial work in
Alabama. A native of Massachusetts
and a graduate of Yale College, in early
life he was called to a professorship in
the State University. A man of great
activity, wonderful versatility and
profound learning, he could not re-
frain from participating in any move-
ments— religious, literary, or political
— which might improve conditions
about him. In a literary magazine, the
Southron, published at Tuskaloosa, the
seat of the University, and the then
capital of the State, he was an earnest
coadjutor of A. B. Meek, editor-in-
chief. It owed much to Dr. Barnard
as a periodical of substantial merit.
For several years also he edited the
Tuskaloosa Monitor, the leading Whig
paper in middle Alabama, with great
success and acknowledged ability. A
controversy carried on in its columns
with an ex-governor of Alabama was
enlivened with many pointed pen
thrusts. The ex-governor, in the dis-
cussion, alluded to Dr. Barnard as "a
Yankee who had no sympathy with the
South." To this the reply was made
that men of sense were not to be brow-
beaten by "a broken-down politician."
The argument ended in the complete
discomfiture of the ex-governor, who
in the absence of convincing argu-
ments appealed to the trustees to re-
move the combative professor — a thing
they wisely refused to consider.

Mississippi, with no large towns and
with a sparse population, had no great
papers. Volney E. Howard, a native
of Maine, went in early life to this
State, where he practised law and be-
came connected with the press. A
Mississippi historian speaks of him as

NEW ENGLAND EDITORS IN THE SOUTH

691

a "successful lawyer, but still more
brilliant as an editor." After the ad-
mission of Texas he moved to that
State and was elected a member of
Congress.

In Louisiana the early influential
papers were published in French by
editors of French extraction. The
New Englander was rather late upon
the scene ; but when he did appear, he
was followed speedily by a goodly com-
pany who exerted a powerful influence
and wielded versatile pens. The most
noted of these have their names im-
perishably identified with the Picayune
in fame and prosperity. Its first issue
appeared January 25, 1837, under the
joint control of Francis A. Lumsden
and George W. Kendall. In what are
known as the palmy days before the
war, the Picayune had a remarkable
quartet of proprietors and editors, each
of whom developed singular fitness for
his work. Besides Lumsden and Ken-
dall the other two were Samuel F. Wil-
son and Alva M. Holbrook. Lums-
den's writings had the vivacity of
youth and the sparkle of wine; Ken-
dall had a nature full of the spirit of
adventure and overflowing with wit
and humor; Wilson brought a rarely
gifted mind and a richly varied experi-
ence to the handling of political, his-
torical and financial topics; and Hol-
brook contributed business sagacity,
conservative methods and rugged hon-
esty. Lumsden was a native of North
Carolina ; the other partners were New
Englanders.

Kendall was born in New Hamp-
shire, in the same village which gave
birth to Horace Greeley. Virtually
educated in a printing office, his asso-
ciations were such as to' inspire high
ideals of his craft, and give excellent

training for his life work. A keen ob-
server of men and events he was quick
to catch and appropriate whatever of
lively interest and joyous aspect might
be laid under tribute for the entertain-
ment of the Picayune's readers. By its
conservative tone, avoiding bitter an-
tagonisms and personal denunciations,
and by its devotion to the commercial
interests of the city, the paper began a
new era in Southwestern journalism
and at once enjoyed popular favor. As
soon as it was established upon a firm
basis, in 1841, he joined an exploring
party for the far West. He believed
that this great unknown, unexplored
region contained a rich commerce
which might be made to pay lavish trib-
ute to the foresight and enterprise of
New Orleans tradesmen. The results
of his experiences and observations are
embodied in a book he published, enti-
tled "Narrative of the Santa Fe Expe-
dition.'' A few years later, when the
Mexican war cloud burst, nibbing his
pen for new conquests and experiences
he went to the front, whence he gave
the Picayune the freshest and most
graphic accounts direct from the scene
of conflict. Letters signed "G. W. K."
were copied by newspapers all over the
country, giving him and his paper wide
celebrity. With the close of the war
he gathered up his letters and material
for an authoritative history of its bat-
tles, and went to Paris to have them
published and illustrated with litho-
graphic plates. Returning to America,
he bought a large landed estate in
Texas, stocked it with fine strains of
sheep and cattle, withdrew from active
service on the Picayune staff, while re-
taining his interest, and lived among
his flocks and herds up to the time of
his death in 1867.

692

NEW ENGLAND EDITORS IN THE SOUTH

Wilson, before his residence in Mo-
bile, had practised law in Baltimore
and Washington. Personally acquaint-
ed with Jackson, Calhoun, Benton and
other party leaders, his courtesy of
manner and grace of conversation gave
him ready approach to the society of
distinguished men in public life. In
1849 ne went t0 New Orleans, and
worked on the Crescent. After a year
he became an attache of the Picayune,
soon acquired an interest in the prop-
erty, and became chief editorial writer,
a position he retained until failing
health admonished a cessation from
work. Illustrating the cherished
friendship of their old associations,
that was a touching and beautiful in-
cident when, upon his deathbed in
1870, Wilson took the hand of Hol-
brook and said feelingly: "You are
the last of us."

Holbrook, who through all the years
since 1839 nad guided the business de-
partment, possessed preeminently the
qualifications demanded for the con-
servative management of a constantly
growing paper. He was born in Ver-
mont, and trained for a business ca-
reer. When quite young he went to
New Orleans and found employment
in a mercantile house. In a few years
he bought an interest in the Picayune,
assumed control, and uniformly dis-
played great wisdom and intelligence
in directing its affairs. His influence
was felt in every department, for he
mastered all the details of journalism.
His generous encouragement of writ-
ers did much to develop native talents,
while it contributed greatly to the value
and authority of the paper. At the
outbreak of the Civil War, with Lums-
den drowned in Lake Michigan and
with Kendall living on his stock farm,

Wilson and himself alone of the old
ownership remaining on the staff, he
had much to do with the shaping of the
policy. Devoted to the South, when
New Orleans fell, he accepted the in-
evitable, and continued to publish the
paper with all the drawbacks attending
Federal occupation. Only once did the
paper receive such censure as to war-
rant a suspension. With his death in
1876 the last of this remarkable
quartette passed away.

Connected with the Picayune, the
Crescent, and other representatives of
the Louisiana press, were other New
Englanders who made their impress in
the State. Among the most notewor-
thy of these were T. B. Thorpe, whose
"Hive of the Beehunter" and other
published works had a large vogue in
their day, and J. W. Frost, whose bril-
liant life went out in a duel, but of
whom the record is, "He was an able
journalist and trenchant debater of
large literary and jurisprudential re-
sources."

Arkansas offers a bright name to
the list in that of Albert Pike,
poet, soldier and lawyer, who was
born in Boston. For several years
in the fourth decade of the last
century he edited the Arkansas
Advocate.

After this hasty glance at some of
the more conspicuous of the New
England editors in the South, one is
enabled approximately to determine
the value of their services. With no
fortunes or capital in the beginning,
they gave their lives and influence to
every legitimate enterprise promoting
the interests of the section. They en-
couraged commerce by recommending
ceaselessly the improvement of water-
ways, the construction of railways

THE TEACHING OF TEARS

693

and the opening of new avenues of
traffic. They supported measures for
enlarged educational facilities and ad-
vocated improved methods in agricul-
ture and diversification in industrial
pursuits. They sought to build up
political parties and to promote the
political fortunes of individuals. They
entered unreservedly into the life of
the people among whom they had cast
their lot, and adapted themselves with
readiness to customs and conditions.
They owned slaves and defended "the
peculiar institution" with fiery zeal
and unequivocal pen. To protect
honor or to ward off assault they
fought with brave hearts, clenched
fists, hard knocks and cool nerve,

either upon the duelling field or in the
street encounter. In controversies —
personal, political, or theological —
they sustained themselves with char-
acteristic vigor and unwavering Cour-
age. In exhibiting and cultivating
the mirthful side of life, they added
infinitely to the storehouse of humor.
In permanent contributions of literary
merit, they enlivened greatly the
dreary record of Southern literature.
Representative of the best culture of
New England and many of them
graduates of Harvard, Yale, Dart-
mouth, Brown, Middlebury and othei
New England colleges, their value to
the higher intellectual life of the old
South was inestimable.

The Teaching of Tears

By Marion Hill.

LET those who have no grave to tend, no ghost
To love and long for through the aching years,

No message, kept— too late — for silent ears,
Who do not mourn a voice forever lost,
Let only those, the happy, dare to boast

That sorrow's garb is lovely, or that tears

Are gems in brimming eyes, or woe endears
The woful to the world. Ah, no! the most
Of noisy grief is travesty. But they

Whose homes have paid their toll to Death, they know
That sorrow dares not weep, but must be gay

In mercy to the living left. They show
Best thus, grace to the dead; and learn the while
The matchless he'roism of a smile.

To a Singer

By Edwin E. Stillman

COULDST be the chosen singer
Whose torch the Muses trim
And send to be the bringer

Of songs of seraphim —
And not an idle ringer

Of sound whose sense is dim?

Then sing the songs of morning:
Of spring and hope and youth;

Of golden deeds adorning
The clear sunrise of truth ;

These flout the Fates with scorning
And fill the heart with ruth.

What though life's way leads whither
Funereal cerements wave?

Shall Faith not call from thither
Of hope beyond the grave?

Of truth that may not wither
For souls that still be brave?

Some true word, sung or spoken,
By thee may ring the knell

Of Error's reign and broken
Be Superstition's spell !

Then by that happy token
Shall Time say : "All is well !"

694

The Wadsworth-Longfellow House, Portland, Me.

An Historic Mansion

By Ella Matthews Bangs

"All houses wherein men have lived and

died
Are haunted house's."

WHEN Henry
Wads w or t h
Longfellow wrote
these lines he per-
haps had little
thought of how
fittingly they
would one day be
applied to the
house which was
the home of his own childhood and
young manhood, yet to-day one who
visits the old Wadsworth-Longfel-
low mansion in Portland, Maine, finds
it indeed haunted by memories of
those whose lives once centred there.
A little back from the main street it
stands, with its three stories of red

brick dwarfed by newer and more pre-
tentious buildings on either side; tall
trees shadow it, but no grass now
grows upon the plat of ground once
the front yard, yet as the door, with
its ancient knocker, swings open, we
catch a glimpse of green from the old
garden at the farther end of the hall,
and of tall elms, and a tangle of shrub-
bery and trailing vines. But though
the chief interest in it lies in the fact
that it was once the home of a poet
who has perhaps come nearer the
hearts of English-speaking people the
world over than has any other Ameri-
can writer, still the old mansion has a
history of its own, and one not with-
out interest, connected as it is with the
name of a brave soldier of the Revolu-
tion, General Peleg Wadsworth. This

695

Gen. Peleg Wadsworth and Elizabeth Bartlett, His Wife

man graduated from Harvard in 1769,
was one of the first to organize a com-
pany to resist the tyranny of the
mother country, and with the rank of
captain was appointed an engineer on
the staff of General John Thomas, and
rendered important service in fortify-
ing Roxbury and Dorchester Heights.
After the departure thence of General
Washington in 1776, he became aide-
de-camp to General Artemas Ward,
serving with him until his retirement
from service. In 1778 he was ap-
pointed Adjutant General of Massa-
chusetts, and in 1779 was second in
command of the land forces in the
Bagaduce expedition. In 1780 he
commanded the troops on the Maine
coast, and in February, 1781, while at
his lodgings at the headquarters in
Thomaston, was surprised with the
few men under him, wounded, and
after a most resolute resistance, cap-
tured and carried to Fort George,
Castine. The following June, after a
series of romantic adventures, he
made his escape. In 1784 he came
from Plymouth, Massachusetts, to
make his home in Portland, bringing
his wife, formerly Miss Elizabeth
696

Bartlett of Plymouth, who has been
described as "a lady of fine manners
and all womanly virtues, who was
alike his friend and comforter in hours
of trial ; the grace and ornament of his
house in the days of prosperity."

Would we see the General as in the
old days he might have stood to wel-
come us, we have to aid the fancy the
following description given by his
daughter, Zilpah: "Imagine to your-
self a man of middle age, well propor-
tioned, with a military air, and who
carries himself so truly that many
thought him tall. His dress, a bright
scarlet coat, buff smallclothes and
vest, full ruffled bosom, ruffles over
the hands, white stockings, shoes with
silver buckles, white cravat bow in
front, hair well powdered and tied be-
hind in a club, so called." If we add
to this a cocked hat of black felt, we
have the picturesque figure of the man
who in the year 1785 began the erec-
tion of the first brick house to be built
in Portland. The store and barn
were built first, and it was not till the
spring of 1786 that the residence was
completed. This delay was caused by
the difficulty in obtaining bricks. At

697

698

AN HISTORIC MANSION

that time none suitable for such a pur-
pose had been made in this vicinity,
so from Philadelphia was brought a
quantity supposed by the General to
be sufficient for the walls of his house.
But the builders had miscalcu-
lated, and having begun them sixteen
inches in thickness, the supply gave
out. The walls were then protected
for the winter, until, with the spring,

about it as one steps in from the street
and faces the broad stairway.

The interior is but little changed, for
though repairs have been needed on so
old a building, care has been taken to
preserve as nearly as possible the
original appearance of the rooms. All
the windows have the same old pan-
elled wooden shutters, as of yore, and
some of those on the back of the house

Redrawn from an old print

The House before Alteration

another lot could be brought from
Philadelphia and the building com-
pleted.

In its original form the house was
of two stories, with a pitch roof.
Four ample chimneys gave draught to
the fireplaces with which each room
was provided. Though now in the
heart of the city, the house when built
was on the outskirts of the town, amid
green fields, and commanding fine
views of the ocean, which it faced, and
of the mountains and forests away to-
ward the western horizon. Built in
the old colonial style, with the hall
running through the centre, there is
still an air of old-time hospitality

retain the old casements, with their
many tiny panes of glass ; the doors all
have their curious old "box latches,"
and thanks to the generous thickness
of the walls, there are wide window-
seats in all of the lower rooms, cush-
ioned and inviting. On the left, upon
entering, is the parlor, which, at the
time the house was built, was the
largest private reception room in Port-
land, and in this room was placed the
first piano to be brought to town. It
was probably called a spinet, and the
story is told that such was the curiosi-
ty of the country people regarding
this wonder, that they would stand
around the windows looking in and

The Parlor, Showing Piano

listening whenever the instrument was
being played, and even offer money to
have the music continued.

When the Wadsworth family moved
in there were six children, one of
whom, Zilpah, the future mother of
the poet, was a little maid of seven or
eight. Here in 1790 was born an-
other son, Alexander Scammel, named
for General Scammel, a friend and col-
lege classmate of Wadsworth, and the
man for whom also one of the forts
in Portland Harbor was named. Alex-
ander entered the navy as a midship-
man in 1804, and in 181 5 distinguished
himself as a lieutenant on the Consti-
tution in her engagement with the
Guerriere, and for his gallantry was
presented with a sword by the citizens

of his native town. In this connection
it is interesting to know that among
the recent visitors to the old house was
a young midshipman from the Chesa-
peake, Alexander Scammel Wads-
worth, a great-grandson of the first
Alexander, and the fourth in succes-
sion to bear the name.

Five months before the appointment
of the first Alexander as a midship-
man, his older brother, Henry, had
voluntarily sacrificed his life, with his
companions, in the fire-ship Intrepid,
which was blown up before Tripoli
during the night of September 4,
1804, to prevent her from falling into
the hands of the enemy. In the old
house to-day may be seen the bronze
medal, as well as the original letter

699

700

AN HISTORIC MANSION

Stephen Longfellow

with which it was presented by the
Secretary of the Navy, in recognition
of the bravery of this young lieuten-
ant, the uncle for whom the poet was
named.

As we enter the once stately parlor
of the Wadsworth mansion we see the
room for a moment, not with its group
of sightseers, but with the figures,
whose "steps make no sound upon the
floor," once here with their training
gowns, powdered hair and beauty
spots of court-plaster cut in fanciful
forms, with bright hued coats and ruf-
fled linen. In this room were held
many of the grandest festivities of the
day, and here in 1804 took place the
wedding of Zilpah Wadwsorth and
Stephen Longfellow. For a time the
young couple lived in the old home of
the bride; then after keeping house
elsewhere on the same street, where
their first child, Stephen, was born,
they removed for the winter to the

home of relatives on the corner of
Fore and Hancock Streets, in the east-
ern part of the town, and here on the
twenty-seventh of February, 1807,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow first
saw the light. During the year pre-
ceding, General Wadsworth had built
another large house in Hiram, Maine,
known as Wadsworth Hall, and to
this he removed with his family a few
months before the birth of the grand-
son who was to become so well known,
and here in 1829 he died, at the age of
eighty-one.

The Portland house thus becoming
vacant, Stephen Longfellow, with his
family, took possession during the
year following the birth of the future
poet, and here, where their married
life had begun, Mr. and Mrs. Long-
fellow spent their remaining years.
Under its roof six other children were
born to them, Elizabeth W., Anne,
Alexander W., Mary, Ellen and Sam-
uel.

Though the literary talent of the
poet was a legacy from his mother's
family, his father was a man distin-
guished in other ways, and one of
whom William Willis said, "No man
more surely gained the confidence of
all who approached him, or held it
firmer; and those who knew him best
loved him most." One can well be-
lieve this to be true of a man whose
sentiments were expressed in the fol-
lowing words, when writing to his
son Henry in regard to his choice of a
profession :

"As you have not the fortune (I will not
say whether good or ill) to be born rich,
you must adopt a profession which will
afford you subsistence as well as reputa-
tion. I am happy to observe that my am-

*£

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

701

702

AN HISTORIC MANSION

bition has never been to accumulate
wealth for my children, but to cultivate
their minds in the best possible manner,
and to imbue them with correct moral,
political, and religious principles, — be-
lieving that a person thus educated will
with proper diligence be certain of at-
taining all the wealth which is necessary
to happiness."

Stephen Longfellow was graduated
from Harvard in 1798 and admitted
to the bar in 1801. He was later a
Representative to the General Court,
state Senator, Judge of the Court of
Common Pleas and Representative to
Congress, a trustee of Bowdoin Col-
lege and president of the Maine His-
torical Society. The Longfellow an-
cestors were Puritans.

The poet on his mother's side was a
descendant of seven Mayflower Pil-
grims : Elder William Brewster, his
wife and their son Love, William Mul-
lins, his wife and their daughter Pris-
cilla, and John Alden. So it will be
seen that in the "Courtship of Miles
Standish" the poet was in a way writ-
ing family history.

Of the Longfellow children born in
this house, Elizabeth died at the age
of twenty and Ellen at sixteen. Alex-
ander has but recently passed away,
having lived a long life as an honored
citizen of his native town. The Rev.
Samuel, writer of many hymns, as well
as preacher, died in Portland in 1892.
Mary, who married James Greenleaf
of Boston, died at Cambridge,
December 3, 1902. Anne married
George Pierce, a close friend and
classmate of the poet's in that famous
Bowdoin class of 1825, whose sil-
houetted class pictures are among
the objects of interest in the old house
to-day. Upon the early death of this

friend, the poet nearly twenty years
later paid this tribute :

"J have never ceased to feel that in his
death something was taken from my own
life which could never be restored. I
have constantly in my memory his beauti-
ful and manly character, frank, generous,
impetuous, gentle; by turns joyous and
sad, mirthful and serious; elevated by the
consciousness of power, depressed by the
misgivings of self-distrust; but always
kind, always courteous; and, above all,
noble in thought, word, and deed/*

And it was to this same friend that
the poet referred in the "Footsteps of
Angels," in the lines :

''He, the young and strong, who cherished
Noble longings for the strife,
By the roadside fell and perished,
Weary with the march of life."

Widowed within three years of her
marriage, Mrs. Pierce came back to
her birthplace, where in January, 1901,
she died, with the remarkable record
of having lived eighty-seven out of
ninety years in the same house. It is
to this lady that Portland, and indeed
the world, is indebted for the preserva-
tion of the Wadsworth-Longfellow
house, as upon her death she left a
deed making the Maine Historical
Society trustee on certain terms, to
hold the title and to keep the property
in its present condition as a memorial
of her gifted brother.

In 181 5, to accommodate the needs
of his increasing family, Stephen
Longfellow added a third story to the
house, giving it the form we see to-
day, a slight difference in the color of
the bricks showing where the addition
begins.

Passing through the hall we are
reminded that from the front step
Zilpah Wadsworth, then a young lady

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of twenty-one, presented a military
standard to the Federal Volunteers, a
company organized the preceding year.
The large stone upon which she stood
was, no doubt, the same over which
visitors pass to-day in entering, al-
though for many years it was hidden
from sight, as well as from knowledge,
of most of the present generation. In
the old days the house stood three or
four feet above the street; as time
went on the street grew higher, till at
length, there being then no facilities
for raising so large a stone, it was
covered with earth, and new steps built
upon it to raise the approach to the
street level. During the repairs re-
cently made, workmen came down to
the old stone, which was raised, put

The Family Sitting-room

into place, and once more forms the

step of the old house.

Across the hall from the parlor is
the family sitting-room, once the law
office of the poet's father. It has now
the attractive look of a living room,
so much of the old furnishing remains,
and indeed one of the greatest charms
about the place is the fact that every
piece of furniture, with the one ex-
ception of the old piano now in the
parlor, has been used by the Wads-
worth and Longfellow families; the
pictures upon the walls and the little
articles of ornamentation were all
family possessions. In this room is
still the big open fireplace, with its
andirons, and the ghost of firelight
long passed seems to flash for a mo-

703

704

AN HISTORIC MANSION

ment before us, as in fancy we see a
young man looking into the dancing
flames with thoughts in his mind
which he will one day give expression
to in the lines:

"By the fireside there are youthful
dreamers,
Building castles fair, with stately stair-
ways,

Asking blindly
Of the Future what it cannot give them."

In an alcove stands the oldest piece
of Longfellow furniture to be found
in the house, a sort of buffet and desk-
combined, while the upper part was
an addition made by Stephen Long-
fellow to contain his library. The
wall paper is a reproduction of that
formerly upon the walls, being made
expressly for this room, while the car-
pet is the same which was upon the
floor at the time of the poet's last visit
to his old home. This was in July,
1 88 1, at which time, writing to a
friend, he says :

"Portland has lost none of its charms.
It is very pleasant sitting here and dictating
letters. It is like thinking what one will
say, without taking the trouble of writing
it. I have discovered a new pleasure."

By his favorite window still stands
the poet's chair ; a little away is that of
his father, and between the win-
dows the sewing table that was his
mother's ; while the gilt-framed mirror
above, with its quaint picture in the
upper half and row of tiny gilt balls,
dates back to the days of his grand-
mother Wads worth. Near by stands
the table upon which the children
studied their lessons during the win-
ter evenings. Was it upon this, we
wonder, that the thirteen-year-old
Longfellow wrote his first published
verses? These were "The Battle of

Lovell's Pond," the story of which had
made a strong impression upon his
boyish mind. Only his sister Eliza-
beth was let into the secret of their
writing, and she alone knew that he
had carried them to the office of the
Portland Gazette and dropped them in
the box outside. Together the brother
and sister waited the appearance of the
next issue of the paper, and when it
came, containing the verses, shared
their satisfaction and enjoyed the re-
marks occasioned and the conjectures
as to authorship ; but, alas ! their hearts
sank in unison when a friend of the
family pronounced the poem as "Very
stiff, remarkably stiff; moreover, it is
borrowed, every word of it !"

In picturing the boy whose home
was in this house it is pleasant to have
the fancy aided by descriptions which
have been given by friends and mem-
bers of the family. The earliest men-
tion we find of him is in a letter writ-
ten by his mother in October, 1807, in
which she says :

'T think you would like my little Henry
W. He is an active rogue, and wishes for
nothing so much as singing and dancing."

When a boy of nine or ten he is thus
spoken of by a friend of the family
some years later :

'"Most distinctly do I recall the bright,
pleasant boy as I often saw him at his
father's house while I was living in Port-
land, in the years 1816-17. My recollec-
tions of those interviews in that time-
honored mansion, and of the excellent
man whose reception of me was ever
cordial, and whose conversation was to
me so agreeable and so instru tive, have
never ceased to be a pleasure."

Others speak of him as "a lively
boy, with brown or chestnut hair, blue
eyes, a delicate complexion and rosy

The Poet's Chair

cheeks ; sensitive, impressionable ; ac-
tive, eager, impetuous, often impa-
tient; quick-tempered, but as quickly
appeased; kind-hearted and affection-
ate,— the sunlight of the house."

One of his schoolmates, the late
Elijah Kellogg, wrote thus of him as
he remembered him at the academy in
Portland, at about the time of the
writing of his first poem :

" I recollect perfectly the impression
made upon myself and others. He was a
very handsome boy. Retiring, without
being reserved, there was a frankness
about him that won you at once. He
looked you square in the face. His eyes
were, full of expression, and it seemed as
though you could look down into them as
into a clear spring. He had no relish for
rude sports, but loved to bathe in a little
creek on the border of Deering's Oaks,

and would tramp through the woods at
times with a gun, but this was mostly
through the influence of others; he loved
much better to lie under a tree and read.
. . . If he was a thoughtful, he cer-
tainly was not a melancholy boy."

Just across the corner from the
poet's favorite window a doorway
leads into a small room, an addition to
the main part of the house, built on by
Stephen Longfellow for his law office,
and to give another entrance from
outdoors. This has now the appear-
ance of a pantry, with its shelves and
cupboards, to which use it was given
over some years later. The one win-
dow here looks out upon the old gar-
den, and by it the youthful poet loved
to sit during his writing. In a letter
which he wrote to his sister Elizabeth

705

706

AN HISTORIC MANSION

"Tall Elms and a Tangle of Shrubbery
and Trailing Vines"

in 1829, during his first visit abroad,
he says:

"My poetic career is finished. Since I
left America I have hardly put two lines
together . . . and no soft poetic ray
has irradiated my heart since the Goths
and Vandals crossed the Rubicon of the
front entry, and turned the sanctum

sanctorum of the 'Little Room' into a
china closet. . . . The muse being in
the penitentiary, I can write no epithala-
mium, but I can send you a volume of
good wishes which I think much better.''

The good wishes referred to were
in the way of congratulations upon his
sister's engagement, but the marriage
was never realized, as the young girl
died before its consummation.

Adjoining, and back of the sitting-
room, is the kitchen, with its capacious
fireplace, which has never been closed
to conform to modern methods and
ideas, but remains as it was in the
days when the young people of two
generations gathered about it to roast
apples and chestnuts, or the cook bus-
tled about preparing some state din-
ner. On an iron plate set into the
brickwork in the back is the figure of
a fish, which a brother of the poet has
spoken of as "baked in effigy." Here
to-day the stout crane supports the pots
and kettles as they hung from the pot-
hook more than a hundred years ago.
The names of many of the articles, as
well as their uses, are strange to mod-
ern comprehension, for there are a
Dutch oven, a tin-kitchen, a plate
warmer, apple roaster, coffee roaster
and mills, bread toaster, and waffle
irons which look like a huge pair of
tongs. Built into the brickwork at
the left is the oven for baking, and one
easily fancies the procession of brown
bread and white, Indian puddings and
pumpkin pies which has passed in and
out of it. At the right is the boiler,
for use on washing days, with the
small opening beneath, in which the
fire was made. The old dresser is at-
tractive, with its display of britannia,
tin and earthen ware, among the lat-

The Kitchen

ter being platters, pitchers and beer
mugs, which are quite the envy of
modern collectors. Here, too, may be
seen the bread tray used at the ban-
quet given to General Lafayette on the
occasion of his visit to Portland in
1825, at which time the father of the
poet, on behalf of the citizens of the
town, gave the address of welcome.
And we must not overlook the candle
moulds, nor the lanterns, nor the steel-
yards with which the babies of the
family were weighed.

A steep stairway leads from the
kitchen to the upper rooms, and at the
head of this, we are told by one who
was there, the children of the family
used to sit on Thanksgiving morning
inhaling the delightful odors rising to
them from the room below, and which

1 I KQ II |

The Kitchen Dresser

707

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The Den, with "The Rainy Day" Desk

a little later would materialize for them
in the dining-room across the hallway
from the kitchen. On one of the doors
of this room is a quotation from the
Rev. Samuel Longfellow's memories
of Thanksgiving:

"At dinner were gathered at the old
home children and grandchildren, and all
the boys and girls were allowed to have
as much turkey and as many pieces of
mince pie and pumpkin pie and as many
nuts and raisins as they could hold. In
the evening they played blindman's buff."

The dining-room was originally the
sleeping room of General Wadsworth,
and the time came when it was known
as the "den" and "Henry's room."
The walls are still decorated with
paper brought from Paris by a mem-
708

ber of the family between fifty and
sixty years ago. The chief interest,
however, centres in the fact that upon
the ancient mahogany desk which still
stands between two windows looking
out upon the old garden, "The Rainy
Day" was written. Glancing out we
may see that the "vine still clings to
the mouldering wall," as at the time
the poem was written in 1841, and in
June — it is a flowering grape — it is
covered with a profusion of blossoms.
On the desk is now kept the register,
in which, during the two seasons in
which the house has been opened,
more than nine thousand visitors have
inscribed their names, from that of
President Roosevelt, — written with a

The Guest Room

quill once belonging to the poet's
father, — to those of men and women
from humbler walks of life, and who
have come from all over the United
States, Canada, England, France,
Spain, Brazil, Australia, and even
India and Japan.

Other poems known to have been
written, wholly or in part, in this
house, beside the two already men-
tioned, are "Musings/' "The Spirit of
Poetry," "Burial of the Minnisink,"
"Where From the Eye of Day,"
"Song of Birds," "Changed," and
"The Lighthouse."

Returning to the front hall and
going up the broad stairway, with its
bright red carpeting, one must pause
to admire the series of beautiful pic-

tures, seven in number, by well-known
artists, each representing a scene from
some of the poet's writings. On the
upper landing we face a bust of the
poet at twenty-one, and farther along
an oil portrait of him at twenty-three,
at which time he was a professor at
Bowdoin. A doorway just beyond
this portrait leads to the chamber in
which the poet's mother died, directly
over the room in which she was mar-
ried, and the later event is brought
vividly before us by the following
lines from the writings of her son :

"In the chamber where I last took leave of
her lay my mother to welcome and take leave
of me no more. I sat all that night alone
with her, — without terror, almost without
sorrow, so tranquil had been her death."

709

710

AN HISTORIC MANSION

Boyhood Desk and Trundle Bed

It is hard to realize the present in
this room, filled as it is with reminders
of the past. Here is the cradle in
which two poets have been rocked,
while two tall cases contain the gowns,
bonnets and other articles of wearing
apparel belonging to Mrs. Longfellow,
her sister, Lucia, and their mother.
Among other curiosities is a pair of
pink kid slippers with pointed toes,
showing something of the experience
through which they passed when worn
by Mrs. Peleg Wadsworth during the
time spent with her husband in camp
in the intrenchments at Dorchester
Heights. A head-dress dates back to
1700, and it takes but a little play of
the imagination to see the girlish fig-
ures arrayed in these delicate silks,
satins and muslins. Across the room
is a miniature of the old church, or
"meeting-house," which the Longfel-
low family attended, and beside it the
foot-stove which the poet carried
thither for his mother in winter time.
Here, too, is a copy of a long- forgot-
ten poem, in which Henry Longfellow
protested against the taking down of
this old building, when some wished

to replace it by a more modern struc-
ture.

To the guest chamber across the
hall the poet came with his bride. In
this room Stephen Longfellow passed
away, as did also the lady who last
occupied the house, though the room
in use by her for many years was the
one which has just been described.
The tall, four-post bedstead, with its
fringed dimity hangings and antique
coverlet, is suggestive of a bygone day
and people, as is the wood bottom
rocking chair once belonging to the
first mistress of the house. On the
walls are paintings and drawings, and
in a drawer of the old bureau in the
corner many articles of needlework,
all done by the hands of Wadsworth
and Longfellow girls long since
folded for the last time. In another
drawer are daintily embroidered caps
worn by babies now grown to men
and women, or most of them gone,
after long lives of honor and useful-
ness.

Back of the guest chamber, and
opening from it, is a room which,
up to the time of the addition of
the third story, was known as the
children's room, one of these chil-
dren being Henry W. In later
years it was associated with the
Rev. Samuel Longfellow. As we see
it to-day little trace of the children
remains, but notwithstanding this it
speaks eloquently of the past. Con-
spicuous in a glass case of treasures
is the cocked hat, now rusty with age,
but unquestionably the same which
once was identified with General Peleg
Wadsworth, the builder of the house.
Near it rests his canteen, carried by
him through many campaigns; auto-

AN HISTORIC MANSION

71 1

graph verses of the poet's, miniatures,
drawings, and many other articles,
over which the visitor stands ab-
sorbed, turning from them only to
become equally interested in the case
on the other side of the room, which
contains what is claimed to be the
second oldest United States flag now
in existence. Of course it has a story
and something to connect it with the
old house, else it would not be here.
This, then, is its history, dating back
to the war of 1812.

No battle during this war so excited
the people of Portland as did that be-
tween the U. S. brig Enterprise and
his Majesty's brig Boxer, which took
place on the fifth of September, 1813.
On this Sabbath day the citizens
flocked to the Observatory, where its
keeper, Captain Moody, swept the bay
with his glass. Looking off toward
Seguin, he could see the smoke of the
battle forty miles away, but nothing
definite could be learned of its out-
come. On the following morning,
however, the Enterprise was signalled
leading her prize under her own flag,
the same which is now a faded heap
in this glass case. But, alas, for the
two brave captains ! The battle ended
for them that of life, and they were
later buried side by side in the old
cemetery in which the great-grand-
parents of the poet are also buried.
The flag is said not to have been
a new one when it fluttered amid
the death shots of this battle;
and its having fifteen stars would
indicate that it was made some
time between 1792 and 1796. After
the battle the officers of t]ie En-
terprise presented the flag to the
keeper of one of the hotels of
the day, who later gave it to the

old Portland Museum, and, when
the collection of this institution
was sold, it was purchased by a pri-
vate citizen of the town. After this it
was on exhibition both in Boston and
New York, as well as in Portland,
where or. the celebrations of Washing-
ton's birthday it was draped over a
boat and drawn through the streets.
In this way the poet must often as a
boy have looked upon it. For several
years it was lost sight of by Portland
people, until, within the last year, it
was traced to Chicago, where it was
found in the possession of a former
resident of Portland, who has kindly
loaned it, to add one more attraction
to the Wadsworth-Longfellow house.
Among the memories of his youth
in Portland, the poet did not fail to
recall the battle between the Enter-
prise and Boxer, voicing it in the fol-
lowing lines :

"I remember the sea-fight far away,
How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains as they lay
In their graves o'erlooking the tranquil
bay,
Where they in battle died."

The remaining room on this floor
was that occupied by Anne Longfel-
low for several years. Here are now
many articles once in use either in
work or play, by different members of
the family, — manuscript music, old
music books, and books of a literary
nature; workboxes, dumb-bells and
other articles. In the little entryway
is a pair of leathern fire-buckets
lettered with the name of S. Stephen-
son, while in the passageway below
we may have passed unnoticed another
pair with the name of Longfellow and
the date 1803 ; these were in the house
on Fore Street when the poet was born.

712

AN" HISTORIC MANSION

Now the visitor passes on over the
stairway worn by the footsteps of
many years to the third story of the
old mansion. Of the seven rooms on
this floor including a capacious linen
closet, the largest are the corner front
chambers, the one on our right as we
reach the landing being that which the
poet called his own during his school
and college days, and to which he
loved to come in later years. Before
the erection of the business blocks
across the street one could look from
its windows out over the blue stretch
of island-dotted ocean, —

"Islands that were the Hesperides
Of all my boyish dreams,"

to the shore of Cape Elizabeth and the
light at Portland Head. This latter ob-
ject formed the inspiration for the poem,
"The Lighthouse," written, at least in
part, in this room, and beginning :

"The rocky ledge runs far into the sea,
And on its outer point some miles
away,
The Lighthouse lifts its massive masonry,
A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by
day.

"Even at the distance I can see the tides,
Upheaving break unheard along its
base,
A speechless wrath, that rises and sub-
sides
In the white lip and tremor of the
face."

"Musings" was also written here,
but of the countless other musings in
the heart of the young man who occu-
pied this room we can only guess
as they found expression in his later
works, for some of these were the
days of which he sang, repeating that
old refrain :

"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long
thoughts."

Of this poem, "My Lost Youth,"
there are many reminders in his home,
and of its writing we have this record,
March 29, 1855 :

"At night as I lie in bed a poem comes
into my mind, a memory of Portland,
my native town, the city by the sea."

And the following day:

"Wrote the poem; and am rather
pleased with it, and with bringing in the
two lines of the old Lapland song."

A back room occupied by each of
the four Longfellow boys at various
times contains the trundle bed, the
school desk, with the marks of boyish
jack-knives indelibly left upon it, and
smaller articles, all once dear to their
boyish hearts. The window looks
down into the garden. Roofs and
walls of neighboring buildings now
shut away the view once so extended,
and of which Samuel Longfellow
wrote :

"In summer time it was pleasant enough
to look from the upper windows; those
of the boy's room looked out over the
Cove, and the farms and woodlands to-
wards Mount Washington, full in view in
the western horizon."

On the casement of this window re-
mains the handwriting of different
members of the family, blurred and
faded now, before being protected by
the glass which at present is over it,
but a transcript of it on the opposite
casement tells us what is there.

In recalling the early days in this
old home, Rev. Samuel Longfellow,
in his life of the poet, has given us
many suggestive pictures, none pleas-
anter, perhaps, than this, which takes
us at once into the everyday life of
the family :

"In the evenings there were lessons to
be learned; and the children opened their

AN HISTORIC MANSION

713

satchels and gathered, with their books
and slates, round the table in the family
sitting-room. . . . Studies over, there
would be games till bedtime. If these be-
came too noisy, or the father had brought
home his law papers from the office, en-
joining strictest quiet, then there was
flight to another room; perhaps in winter,
to the kitchen. . . . When bedtime
came, it was hard to leave the warm fire
to go up into the unwarmed bedrooms;
still harder next morning to get up out of
the comfortable feather-beds and break
the ice in the pitchers for washing. But
hardship made hardihood."

Though the home of the poet's
later years was elsewhere, and his
love of travel carried him to many
lands, yet he never lost his affection
for this old home, or the fair city
of his birth as is shown by repeated
references to both in letter and
journal. Writing from Portland in
August, 1879, ne says: —

"I am here on my annual visit to
the old house, inhaling health with
every breath of sea air. ... I am 'as
idle as a painted ship on a painted ocean.'
I only sit here at this upper window and
see the people go by, and commit to
memory the signs on the opposite side of
the street. The seaside laziness over-
whelms me like a tide. I close my letter
and my eyes." A few days later he writes:
"Church-bells ringing; clatter of church-
going feet on the pavement; boys crying
'Boston Herald'! voices of passing men
and women, — these are the sounds that
come to me at this upper window, look-
ing down into the street."

When so many old landmarks were
obliterated by the fire which swept
over the city on the fourth of July,
1866, this house was fortunate indeed
to escape. The poet refers to the fact
in a letter written to a friend on the
twenty-third of July of that year :

"I have been in Portland since the fire,"
he writes. "Desolation, desolation, deso-
lation. It reminded me of Pompeii, thai
'sepult city.' The old family house was
not burned, the track of the fire passing
just below it."

The day passes as we linger where
everything is so rich with memories
of those who have gone; daylight
fades, when as if by magic lights flash
out from the many old lamps and
candlesticks placed all over the house,
lights which would have seemed magic
indeed to its former inhabitants, but
the old and the new are now com-
bined and electricity has entered the
ancient mansion with the other visitors
of to-day.

A most interesting old house, and
stepping out from it to the bustle of
the street, we find ourselves half un-
consciously repeating the lines:

"We may build more splendid habitations,
Fill our rooms with paintings and with
sculptures,

But we cannot
Buy with gold the old associations."

The Housekeeper's Story

By Elanora Kinsley Marble

FOR reasons which this narra-
tive will clearly disclose, the
portrait of Mistress Eliza-
beth Sterling, by Gilbert
Stuart, has no place among my illus-
trious ancestors in the famous Ford
mansion, Morristown, New Jersey.
Instead, it hangs, its haughty features
turned to the wall, in the attic of that
mansion, undisturbed these many
years save by the hand of curiosity,
or the defacing one of time.
Opposite, in the same ignominious
fashion, hangs the portrait of a man ;
a man whose name hath long been,
and will, so long as the world en-
dures, continue to be a stench in the
nostrils of every true and patriotic
American. Needless to name it here.
'Twere vain to say the cravings of
curiosity had not been mine these
many years, but not till I had arrived
at the age of discretion, which, for a
maiden, my good mother fixed at
twenty years, did she impart to me the
secret which linked together this
guilty and treacherous pair.

'The story of Mistress Elizabeth
Sterling," said she, as we sat in the
library of that historic mansion, built
just prior to the Revolution by my
ancestress, Dame Betty Ford, "is not
a tale, my daughter, for idle ears.
Indeed, so fraught is it with sorrow,
and in one sense shame, that like the
good Dame Betty, and others which
followed her, I have sought, as a
714

family secret, to forever conceal it
from public knowledge.

"But for Ann Greene, the trusted
and much respected housekeeper of the
family at that time, I doubt if the
story, in all its details, had e'er been
known. As she related it to my
mother, half a century or more ago,
so will I relate it to you, in so far as
memory serves, the quaint language
and forms of speech used by her in
those bygone days.

" 'Perchance,' said she in beginning,
'there are those who might deem the
story of Mistress Elizabeth Sterling
somewtiat too fanciful for sober rela-
tion, but I, Ann Greene, who do tell
it to thee am not, and never have
been, given to aught in my speech
save truth. Twas in the spring then,
of 1773, that my mistress, Dame
Betty Ford, did one day receive a
letter which 'twere plain to be seen
did greatly vex her.

" 'Prithee !' said she, upon perusing
it for the second time, ' 'twould seem,
Ann, that the maidens of our
beloved colonies are none fair, nor
yet accomplished enough for my son
Richard. Herein he doth announce
his coming marriage to the Mistress
Elizabeth Sterling, of whose grace,
beauty and accomplishments he hath,
in his letters, been ne'er weary of
discoursing. Also doth he announce
the date whereupon they take ship for
home.'

THE HOUSEKEEPER'S STORY

715

" T held my peace, knowing- well
that at such times speech was neither
sought nor desired of me.

" T do repent me sore, Ann,' the
good dame went on, 'that I said
naught to discourage Richard when
apprised of his intent to visit London.
But for his going, ne'er had he beheld
this Elizabeth Sterling, and, perad-
venture, for my declining years I
might have had a daughter whom
I — ,' here the dear soul did break off,
her voice all a-tremble from sore dis-
appointment and grief.

" 'Ay,' quoth I, seeking to comfort
her, 'not a maiden in all the state of
Jersey, I warrant ye, would have
said nay to Master Richard Ford's
suit. I mind me of several, not far
distant withal, whose hearts will be
sore wounded when they shall have
heard the news.'

" 'Truly,' she assented, her eyes
o'erflowing now, 'there, for one, Ann,
is sweet Mistress Haddenfield, a duti-
ful daughter and a marvel of industry
and patience withal, as her samplers
and other stitchery doth for a surety
avow. And Mistress Abigail Whip-
pany! Where, Ann, can a maiden
be found who, like her, doth unite
youth and beauty with such mental
charms? Serious,, but not sad is
Mistress Abigail ; happy, but not gay ;
devout, yet not a devotee. Verily
would either maiden, Ann, have been
a fitting mate for my son Richard,
and in our approaching troubles with
the mother country, most worthy of
and helpful unto him.'

" 'Thou speakest truly, good Mis-
tress Ford,' I rejoined, gloomily, 'the
news from Virginia this very day is
most disquieting.'

" 'Ay, Ann,' said she, 'there is that

in the air which, of a surety, doth be-
token an approaching storm. The
political leaders, both North and
South, do well see that revolution is
inevitable. I wo^ld my son were
safely at home.'

" 'Fair winds did answer our pray-
ers, so that the white-winged vessel
which bore Master Richard and his
bride arrived safely at port in New
York in due time.

" 'Well do I mind me of the hour
wherein they reached home. In the
spacious hall Mistress Betty Ford
stood, bravely apparelled, and in the
background the numerous servants,
I at their head, all burning with im-
patience, eager to greet the master
and welcome his new-made bride.

" 'Tall and stately, a very queen,
methought, in beauty and grace of
mien, Mistress Elizabeth Sterling
advanced. Right royally was she
clad, too, in a purple silken gown,
with lappets of rich velvet, fashioned
in a manner quite new to the eyes of
us simple colonial folk. Marble-
white was her skin, save where, in
the cheek, a faint dash of crimson did
break through. Black and straight
as the red men of the forest was her
hair, and her eyes, o'er which her hat
with drooping plumes, did cast so
deep a shadow that I scarce could
note them clearly, were blue and
brilliant, yet cold withal as a winter's
sunrise. There was pride in her
nostril and curling lip, and my heart
did grow faint within me when to the
warm salute of her husband's mother,
she did turn a cold and distant cheek.
To the rest of the household, when
presented by her proud and happy
husband, she did vouchsafe a mere
bend of the head, the which might

716

THE HOUSEKEEPER'S STORY

well have beseemed a sovereign to
her subjects rather than the wife of
a colonist to her servants, methought.
"'Proud and cold-hearted I did
deem her that day, and proud and
cold-hearted she did prove, looking
down, despite her studied civility,
upon us colonial folk, though in truth,
with more seemliness might she — of
an impoverished family, and but a
distant kinsman withal of a baronet —
have congratulated herself upon an
alliance with a man of Richard Ford's
standing, wealthy in this world's
goods, to say naught of a true
nobility of character beyond the
power of money to buy.

" 'Perchance I need not say that on
the first uprising of the colonists,
Richard Ford, as did become a true
and noble gentleman, and a Christian
withal, was one of the first to draw
his sword in defence of his country.
When the news came of the landing
of British troops on our shores,
straightway did he go forth to meet
them, and at the head of such a
number of men, both gentlemen and
lowly born, as was a goodly sight to
behold. This he did against the will
and wishes of his lady wife, who
would fain have persuaded him that
to resist tyranny was a heinous
offence, and who did call him a
traitor for taking up arms to defend
his oppressed country, prating much,
and, methought, unseemly, of her
dearly beloved sovereign, King George
the Third.

" 'This difference of his lady wife's
opinion from his own did sorely
grieve Col. Ford, in whom, hither-
to, he had seen no defect, so blind
is love; and also did it greatly
vex his mother, Dame Betty.

Moreover, the families of the bor-
ough, whom Mistress Elizabeth had
affected to regard haughtily, did
begin to cast cold and suspicious
glances upon her, the which did in no
wise lessen Master Ford's grief or his
mother's vexation.

" 'Come I now to the winter of
'79 and '80, that winter of such un-
paralleled and continuous severity,
that, peradventure, the coldest
weather thou hast ever known were
quite as a summer noon in compari-
son. The principal encampment of
Washington's army was on the
Wicke and Kimball farms, about four
miles southwest of Morristown. At
the entreaty of Dame Betty and
Col. Ford, our beloved commander-
in-chief did not make O'Hara's tavern
his headquarters as heretofore — thou
wilt remember the army was encamped
in the same town in 'jj — but did agree
to take up his abode in the Ford man-
sion, wherein the best apartments, in-
cluding the library and a room adjoin-
ing thereunto, were appropriated to his
exclusive use.

" 'Thither on the first of Januafy,
notwithstanding the severe cold,
came Lady Washington, intent upon
a brief visit with her noble and
deservedly honored husband, the
General. Right affable did we find
the distinguished dame ; not beauti-
ful, but comely of countenance and
figure, and of so pretty and engaging
a courtesy withal, as to win all hearts.
" 'Ne'er shall I forget the day — I do
entreat thee, my dear, to pardon me
if now and again I digress from my
more immediate narrative — the day
whereupon it did seem becoming to
several ladies of high position in the
borough to call upon Lady Washing-

THH HOUSEKEEPER'S STORY

717

ton, ere she should take her departure,
and pay their respects. To call upon
so grand a lady 'twas beseeming in
them, they considered, to don their
best bibs and bands, so arrayed in
ruffles of silk and lace they were pre-
sented to her ladyship by our good
mistress.

" 'After their departure she did seek
me in my room.

;' Imagine, Ann,' quoth she, laugh-
ing the while most heartily, 'the dis-
may and discomfiture of the grand
ladies when Lady Washington rose to
receive them, knitting in hand, apolo-
gizing not for the speckled (check)
gingham apron which she did wear
over her simple woollen gown. Right
prettily did she pass the compliments
of the day, the which being over,
placidly resume her knitting, the same
being, as thou knowest, yarn stockings
of huge dimensions destined for the
General's feet.

"' 'Moreover, during the conversation
she did "take occasion to remark, in a
very pleasant manner that it was most
important American ladies become
patterns of industry, since the separa-
tion from the mother country must of
a surety dry up the sources whence so
many of our comforts and luxuries
had hitherto been derived.

" 'Quoth she :

' 'We must become independent by
our determination to do without what
we cannot make ourselves. While our
husbands and brothers are examples
of patriotism it becomes us, thence-
forth, to be examples of thrift and in-
dustry'— the while busily plying the
long shining needles, Ann, as though
the country's welfare, forsooth, did
depend upon the near finish of the
General's stockings.

''But to return, dearie, to Mistress
Elizabeth Sterling.

'Through all this she did hold her
self aloof, and whilst Col. Ford and
his mother, proud of their distin-
guished guest, did entreat Gen. Wash
ington with all honor, she, though she
might not be openly discourteous to
so noble a gentleman, was fain to
meet his courtesy with cold, nay,
frigid reserve, deeming him, in sooth,
as a rebel leader in arms against his
just and lawful sovereign. Not that
at this period she dared thus openly
to express herself, but we knew her
sentiments of old, and naught had she
done or said for us to believe she had
changed them.

" 'Thus it was then, when, upon a
certain day in February of the year
1780, an officer did draw rein before
the Ford mansion and right civillv
request an audience with our com-
mander-in-chief, Gen. Washington.
The General at the time was in th<_-
library deep over sundry maps and
charts with Col. Ford and other offi-
cers, likewise certain gentlemen of
high degree, but straightway did he
receive the visitor, bestowing upon
him, as did the others there assembled,
a most gracious and friendly greeting.

' 'Ne'er saw I a goodlier coun-
tenance, and so meseemed thought
Mistress Elizabeth, for at dinner that
night she appeared most richly appar-
elled and, as I did note when occasion
required my presence in the room, was
to the new arrival exceeding gracious,
engaging him in converse most pleas-
ingly. When of a mind to attract my
lady had a very pretty trick or fashion
of smiling which did vastly become
her, and that she was so minded, the
smiles, which, like ripples o'er a star-

THE HOUSEKEEPER'S STORY

lit lake did curl her red lips that night,
avowed most plainly.

" ' 'Tis passing strange, methought,
marvelling at this, that Mistress Eliz-
abeth is pleased not to bestow upon
this Major in the continental army the
same measure of contempt she hath
been wont to favor other rebel leaders
in arms ; and led by an impulse I
could in no wise have defined unto
myself, I listened, when chance served,
to scraps of their conversation.

" 'And Mistress Shippen,' quoth
she, 'from her last letter I gather — '
and then to my exceeding vexation
she herewith did lower her voice, and
fall to dallying with the food upon her
plate, caring naught, 'twas plain to
be seen, for whatsoever was thereon,
or that which did surround her. In
tones likewise subdued the Major re-
plied, his eyes o'erbold, methought,
roving in undisguised admiration
over Mistress Elizabeth's figure,
whose gown, according to the fashion
of the day, was devised most too gen-
erously to display it.

" 'Howbeit from their discourse I
did gather enough to warrant me in
suspecting the pair had met before, and
that Mistress Shippen, of whom they
did make frequent mention, resided
in Philadelphia, and, like my lady,
was a tory in feeling if not British
born.

" 'The day following, accompanied
by Col. Ford and the Major, Gen.
Washington rode out to the encamp-
ment returning at nightfall, weary and
greatly depressed in spirits over the
dreadful condition of his suffering
troops.

" 'A sorrier lot I ne'er saw,' quoth
the Major to Mistress Elizabeth that
night at dinner, 'many of them with-

out shoes or blankets, the snow two
feet deep, and the weather bitter J y
cold. In truth they did look more like
ragamuffins than troops, I assure
thee.'

''Then did Mistress Elizabeth's lip
curl in a scornful smile.

:' 'Ay,' quoth she, 'barefooted,
clothed in rags and half-starved. The
path, they do tell me, which leadeth
from the camp to the Wicke farm-
house, where they go to beg for alms,
is ofttimes marked with blood from the
cracked and naked feet of the soldiers.
A fine army, in sooth,' with a scornful
laugh, 'enfeebled from hunger and
cold to array themselves against — '
And herewith Mistress Elizabeth did
lower her voice and utter something
which mine ear unhaply failed to
catch.

' 'The day following I do mind it
well, the Major did make divers and
sundry excuses for not accompanying
Gen. Washington and his host to the
camp. 'Twas about two o' the clock,
that afternoon, when as I sat at my
^stitchery by the window at the end of
the great hall, screened from observa-
tion by the damask curtains thereto, I
did see Mistress Elizabeth stealthily
lelave the library wherein I had seen
the Major enter quite an hour before.
Greatly did I marvel at this, for had
she entered the library through the
door from the hallway of a surety I
must have seen her. As I sat puz-
zling over the matter my lady retraced
her steps as though she had forgot
somewhat, and turning the knob of the
door sought again to enter. It was
locked, whereupon she did softly
speak his name ere it was opened, the
key turning in the ward, I did nolo
?t the time, very secretly.

THE HOUSEKEEPER'S STORY

719

" 'My portfolio,' said she, 'it doth
contain that which peradventurc Col.
Ford — ' But here, to my exceeding
vexation, the door closed upon her, and
though I sat at my stitchery till long
past the hour of seeing, yet came not
Mistress Elizabeth forth.

" 'Now I, fearful of many things,
did consider it no less than my duty
to startle the o'erbold pair, and forth-
with advanced to the door and thereat
did knock most lustily.

" 'Enter !' said the Major, which T
did, insomuch as the door was not
locked, and there before the fire, alone,
sat my gentleman reading, a flush of
vexation methought upon his brow at
the interruption.

" T am in quest of Mistress Eliza-
beth,' quoth I, boldly, peering as I
spoke into every corner of the room.
.'Of a surety I did see her enter here
quite three hours ago.' The Major
frowned, and gave me a searching
look.

" T know naught of young Mistress
Ford,' said he curtly, returning to his
book, whereupon I did withdraw, but
not before my quick ear had detected
the sound of a door softly closed in
the General's private room adjoining.
This door, which did open upon a pas-
sage other than the great hall, was
always kept locked as was the one
opening from the room into the
library, the keys whereof the General
did keep in his own possession.

" 'Then did my heart sink within
me, and I did fall to wondering in
what manner and for what purpose
Mistress Ford had procured a dupli-
cate key whereby she might enter the
General's private room in his absence.
No greater mischance, 'methought,
could befall Master Richard than the

loss of his wife's affection, for as U
chanced I had o'erheard him one day
in sweet converse say, 'Such love
as mine ne'er hatji been on earth
since Eden.' Of honor naught
thought I at the time, no, not once,
believe me.

" 'Uneasily did I sleep that night,
and as thou may'st conceive heard
Major Arnold the next morning an-
nounce his instant departure with the
greatest relief and joy, marvelling
much, however, at the non-appearance
of Mistress Elizabeth, who did choose
to excuse herself, upon the plea of in-
disposition, from personally express-
ing her adieux.

" 'And now, dearie, do I come to
the more immediate matter of my nar-
rative.

' 'Twas on the third day after
Major Arnold's departure, that Col-
Ford and a certain Capt. Condict
did ride away with Gen. Washington,
not to return, I o'erheard him tell
Mistress Elizabeth, till deep into the
night. Howbeit the clock was on the
stroke of twelve, noon, when Master
Ford returned, looking, methought,
exceeding anxious and careworn.

" 'Has Capt. Condict been here,
Elizabeth?' inquired he of his wife,
who in surprise had advanced from
the library to meet him.

" 'No,' she made answer, T under-
stood that you and he, likewise Gen.
Washington, would not be home till
midnight.'

" 'It was so arranged,' returned he,
noting not the confusion writ upon
her face, 'but that has happened,
Elizabeth, which has changed our
plans. I wrote to Capt. Condict an
hour ago — being then separated from
him — to meet here at noon a certain

720

THE HOUSEKEEPER'S STORY

person whom it is most necessary for
him to see.'

' 'What has happened?' queried
Mistress Elizabeth, softly, her white
jewelled fingers playing the while in
his hair. 'Have the British ad-
vanced ?'

" 'Tears did well into my eyes
when I beheld him take that white
hand and press it most tenderly to his
lips.

' 'Something worse, love,' he made
answer. 'I doubt, Elizabeth, that we
have a traitor in our midst. Secrets
which we thought safe are known to
the enemy, and I much fear even a
plan of our fortifications is in their
possession.'

"'But how could you know this?'
asked she, right quickly, a look of
doubt upon her face.

" 'He hesitated a moment, a half-
playful smile upon his lips.

" 'Thou must not ask questions, my
Elizabeth,' he then made answer.
'Tales of treachery and deceit are not
fitted for thy sex to hear. 'Tis for
thee to play upon the harpsichord and
broider, whilst we of the harder and
sterner sex find it our duty and privi-
lege to fight for and defend thee,'
whereupon the noble Colonel drew her
to him and fondly kissed her, the
which she did suffer for a moment,
then, disengaging herself, looked at
her watch and pleading an engage-
ment with her mantaumaker hastily
leave the room.

" 'Now my dear mistress, Dame
Betty, had not, from indisposition, left
her chamber that morning, and desir-
ing a book from the library had re-
quested of me to fetch it. The day
was gloomy and the shadows within
the large room deep, so that it chanced

from where I stood my presence to
the pair was not known.

" 'For a space after Mistress Eliza-
beth's departure Col. Ford sat in deep,
yea, painful abstraction before the fire,
then in his impatience did rise and
restlessly pace the floor. Scarce
knowing what to do, I shrank farther
into the shadows, into a little nook
formed by a silken curtain, with no
other intent, dearie, believe me, but to
bide awhile hoping the Colonel would
be called from the room whereby I
could depart discreetly.

" 'To and fro he paced, to and fro,
then seated himself before the fire
again, sighing heavily. Presently I
did see him stoop and pick up a frag-
ment of paper which lay half hidden
beneath the brass fender, and, with a
pencil jot down upon it sundry letters
or figures, very slowly and thought-
fully, as one who considers before he
writes. Anon, that side being filled,
he did turn it over, whereupon a look
of surprise and perplexity came o'er
his countenance as he read certain
words writ thereon.

" 'That hand,' muttered he, 'verily
it doth seem exceeding familiar to me,'
whereupon he did stoop again and
from beneath the fender withdraw
other fragments of a letter intended
peradventure to have been cast in the
fire, the which he essayed, with much
eagerness, to fit together upon a table
near. Unhaply they failed to corre-
spond, but that he had deciphered
somewhat to render him uneasy I
could not doubt, for with muttered
words he straightway began to pace
the floor again, an added gloom on his
already clouded brow.

" 'Gustavus !' said he, 'Gustavus,
I know not the name,' then, quite by

THE HOUSEKEEPER'S STORY

721

accident I do assure thee, the Colonel
paused before his wife's writing desk
whereupon lay her portfolio, the
which, in her haste and confusion, me-
thought, she had forgotten to lock
within. Abstractedly did he lift the
dainty thing, and as I had ofttimes
seen him do with other trifles her
white hands had touched, press it ten-
derly to his lips. Several slips of
paper did thereupon flutter from be-
tween its leaves, and fall, to the floor,
the which he picked up and sought to
restore again.

" 'Ah !' he exclaimed, in a startled
tone, 'the same hand,' and with a face
gone white as the sheeted dead, bore
them to the table whereon he had ar-
ranged the other fragments, seeking
perchance, to know if in character they
might correspond. That they did no
need had I to see, for from his lips
broke a cry so exceeding sorrowful
and bitter that my heart near froze
within me to hear.

" 'My wife,' he groaned. 'Ah God,
it cannot, cannot be!'

" 'For a space he stood motionless,
then advanced resolutely to Mistress
Elizabeth's desk.

" 'A man's honor, and the honor
of his family,' said he aloud, 'do oft-
times require of him to do that which
under other circumstances would be
of itself dishonor;' and thereupon,
with his strong hands, did he deliber-
ately break open the lid of the locked
desk.

" 'What he found therein I cannot
say, but from a secret compartment T
did observe him withdraw a folded
paper, with which, after reading, he
did walk out of the room, along the
passage, and up the staircase, straight,
as I could hear, to the apartment of

Mistress Elizabeth, his wife. From it
he at once descended, and calmly in-
quired of her maid at the foot of the
stairs the whereabouts of her mistress.
" 'That I know not, sir,' said she.
'She bade me to have her dinner dress
laid out at six o' the clock, as she
would not return till late.'

" 'Ay, too late,' he muttered, 'per-
chance;' then donning cloak and hat
the Colonel mounted his horse, and
rode furiously away.

" 'The torn bits of paper lay upon
the table still, in the order wherein he
had arranged them, and I, fearful they
held some secret fraught with dis-
honor to the name of Ford, did pro-
ceed to sweep them into Mistress
Elizabeth's portfolio, though not with-
out discerning, greatly against my de-
sire and wishes, believe me, the words,
'O'Hards tavern' — 'Between ten and
midnight,' and a date which I did
afterward recall was the identical one
of that day's happenings.

" 'At dinner that night Mistress
Elizabeth came in late and hurriedly,
for which she did graciously apologize
— there were always guests during
those troublous times at the Ford man-
sion— but methought her manner was
less easy, her eyes more bright and
restless than was their wont, and I did
notice her start and change color when
suddenly addressed, or at any stir in
the hall. As soon as she could with
propriety leave the company, she so
did, pleading fatigue, or headache, it
doth not matter which.

" 'That night, I do recall, was still
and cold, the sky full of little white
clouds lapped one over the other like
shells on the seashore. Now and again
the moon would strike through in a
long bright ray, like unto a lance

722

THE HOUSEKEEPER'S STORY

severing the frosty air, and in the
black front o' night shone a star,
which I did liken, I remember, unto
the star on the forehead of the
Colonel's famous black stallion.

' 'Impressed with a vague feeling of
anxiety I sought the library and, car-
ing naught for -candles, sat me down
before the fire, the flickering light
whereof did cast fantastic shadows
about the room. How long I sat thus
I know not, but presently my ear
caught the sound of a movement with-
in the General's private room adjoin-
ing, not stealthy, no, but as of one
walking hurriedly, to and fro.

' 'Mistress Elizabeth again,' quoth
I to myself, but hearing at this mo-
ment the rustle of silken skirts with-
out, I did peer into the hall, and there,
flitting stealthily across the landing at
the head of the stairs, was my lady.
She too was listening and watching —
for' what? Vaguely the inquiry
crossed my mind, yet I doubted not
that her proud heart held some guilty
secret.

' 'Then, deeming it most fitting that
I should know who this intruder might
be in the General's room — who with
Col. Ford was not expected home
before midnight, as thou knowest — I
scrupled not to knock right smartly
upon the door and demand, in no
gentle voice, to know who was within.

' 'Enter, good Mistress Greene,'
said a familiar voice, yet so harsh and
strained withal, I scarce did know it.

" 'Master Richard,' exclaimed I, but
upon entering started back courtsey-
ing deeply, for there by the window,
through which the moon shone palely,
stood our beloved commander Gen.
Washington.

" 'Truly,' quoth I, inwardly, 'my

eyes doth deceive me,' but no, it was
indeed the General's tall, stately
figure, his dignified attitude — the left
hand in the breast of his coat — the
wig, the high horseman's boots, the
cocked and braided military hat which
did confront me.

" 'So thou didst not know me, Mis-
tress Greene ?' again spoke the familiar
voice ; ' 'tis well. By the pale light of
the moon thou didst take me for Gen-
eral Washington?'

" 'Marvellously art thou like him/ I
responded, 'dressed as thou art in his
very clothes ;' whereupon Col. Ford
relighted the candles upon the chim-
neypiece, the rays thereof falling upon
his face did reveal it so ghastly white
and changed that I scarce could con-
trol my grief at the sight of it.

" 'Thou art ill, Master Ford,' I cried
seizing his hand, 'something dire has
happened. Thy mother — ' I got no
further in my speech, for at this mo-
ment the door suddenly opened and
upon the threshold appeared Mistress
Elizabeth, a look of displeasure upon
her haughty features.

" 'Gen. Washington ! 'exclaimed she,
with a slight courtesey, turning to re-
tire, T did think I heard my husband's
voice, else — ' She paused here in her
apology, for the light of the candles
revealed to her clearly the features of
Col. Ford.

" 'Richard, my husband,' cried she,
advancing and laying her hand upon
his arm, 'and in Gen. Washington's
dress. What does it mean ? I do en-
treat thee to tell me, dearest/

"'Ne'er a word answered he, but
shrank from her touch, with such a
look of grief and agony upon his face
as doth haunt me still.

" 'Then came a red mark all across

THE HOUSEKEEPER'S STORY

723

her brow as though he had smitten
her.

' 'I demand to know the meaning
of this masquerade,' said she sharply,
'and wherefore thou takest another,'
with a scornful glance in my direction,
'into thy confidence?'

" 'Then did Master Ford bow his
noble head, and in a low tone utter a
few words whereof I did catch but
'thy handmaid,' and 'dishonor,' and
with that look upon his face, as of one
long ill and nigh unto death, he put
her from him and slowly left the room.

" 'At his words the blood rushed
back to her heart, and I did note she
turned whiter than a lamb at the shear-
ing and her lips like unto white
threads. Motionless thus she stood,
hearkening to the furious pace at
which the Colonel rode away, then,
perchance, her haughty spirit wounded
that I, a servant, should have wit-
nessed this slight put upon her,
turned angrily to me.

' 'What meaneth this masquerade?'
she demanded, 'and wherefore, Mis-
tress Greene, art thou closeted with
my husband, discoursing of matters
too secret it doth seem for his wife's

ears?

a i

Verily,' I made answer, wrought
to anger in turn by her looks and
sneers, 'thou askest too much of me,
Mistress Elizabeth. For a surety the
General's private room holdeth many
secrets of late. Dost know aught of
them ?'

' 'Then did that red mark shoot
across her brow again as if it were my
hand this time which had smitten her,
seeing which, I did feel a strong, desire
within me to chronicle somewhat of
that day's happenings, mentioning
naught of the portfolio or desk, but

merely the fragments of a letter which
Col. Ford had found beneath the
fender.

" 'Whereupon her face grew white
as a wind flower, and the hand she
laid upon my arm shook as the leaves
upon a tree when the shaft is smitten
by lightning.

" 'Thou knowest more than thou
chosest to tell, good Mistress Greene,'
said she, with unwonted gentleness.
'Tell me all I beseech thee ! Of what
did the fragments treat ?'

" 'They did convey but little mean-
ing to my mind, Mistress Elizabeth,' i
made answer, 'but thou canst, perad-
venture, attach unto them some more
definite meaning. Thou wilt find
them all in your portfolio.'

" 'My portfolio,' she gasped, 'my
portfolio!' and like one distraught
rushed to her desk in the library.

" 'Midnight struck at this moment,
and scarce had I done listening to the
strokes of the distant town clock when,'
through the darkness and stillness of
the night, rang a cry so long and an-
guish fraught that it near stilled the
life within me.

" 'Save him !' shrieked Mistress
Elizabeth, rushing into the hall, the
while deserted, but filled now with a
company all waxed distraught at the
unseemly clamor. 'Oh, help me, help
me to save him !'

" 'Thus she stood, arrayed all in her
dinner dress of silks and jewels, when,
as though in answer to her agonized
entreaty, the great hall door was opened
from the outside and upon the thresh-
old appeared a squad of soldiers bear-
ing a litter. At its head, his usually
calm and serene countenance bearing
traces of deep grief and emotion, stood
the tall majestic form of our ever-

724

MOTHER-LOVE

loved and revered general, George
Washington.

' Thy son,' said he, clasping both
of Dame Betty's hands in his, as the
soldiers filed in and sat their ghastly
burden down, 'thy noble son, my hon-
ored friend, who, this night, in place
of my unworthy self, hath met death
at the hands of an assassin.'

' 'Then did the shrieks of Mistress
Elizabeth ring out afresh as she threw
herself upon that blood-stained corpse,
and howsoever guilty she had been in
plotting the death of Gen. Wash-
ington with that arch-traitor, Benedict
Arnold, I did know from her ravings
that her true heart's affection had been
wholly given to her husband, Col.
Richard Ford.' "

Here my mother stopped in the
housekeeper's narrative as though the
story were done.

"But what became of Mistress
Elizabeth Ford?" I queried. "To turn
her portrait to the wall were slight
punishment, indeed, for such a crime."

"Never again was she looked upon
or spoken to by any member of Col.
Ford's family, and after the funeral —
which she was not permitted to attend
— so shunned was she by all good folk
that, in the housekeeper's own words,
'right shortly did she remove from the
Ford mansion into the British lines,
by express permit of Lord Corn-
wallis, the British commander, him-
self/

"Of her after-fate," continued my
mother, "little is known. After the
surrender of Cornwallis, Benedict Ar-
nold— who in all his traitorous corre-
spondence with Sir Henry Clinton
signed himself 'Gustavus' — removed
to England. In his house, most fit-
tingly situated within a stone's throw
of Tyburn, a woman closely resem-
bling Mistress Elizabeth Sterling was
often seen, related 'twas said to his
wife, a Miss Shippen of Philadelphia,
a woman, no doubt, who like him, be-
cause of the infamy of a crime, was
glad to sink into utter obscurity."

Mother-Love

By Edwin Carlile Litsey

TO measure it there is no need to try;
Tis bounded not by earth, nor sea, nor sky.
Broader than earth is broad; the heart its home-
That tender love which you and I have known.
Deeper than all the seas that round us roll ;
A sheltered haven for the storm-tossed soul.
Infinite as is God's eternal sky;
To measure it there is no need to try.
One of His mysteries; let it alone, —
That tender love which you and I have known !

Reminiscences of Wendell Phillips

By Lillie B. Chace Wyman

THE charm of Wendell Phil-
lips's personality is fast
becoming a tradition, but
there are men and women
still living for whom the streets of
Boston seem haunted by his beau-
tiful and brilliant presence. The
sweetness of his nature is unguessed
by the college boys who to-day de-
claim his orations in accents that
sound odd to those ears that are
even yet filled with the music of his
delivery.

I suppose that I must have heard
Mr. Phillips speak and lecture from
fifty to a hundred times, but in this
paper I propose chiefly to recall the
man as he seemed to his friends.
One or two bits of contemporary
description of himself and the group
of workers in which he stood are
found in a schoolgirl's letter, writ-
ten in May, 1864, concerning a much
perturbed convention of the New
.England Antislavery Society, at the
time when the nation was engaged
in its last struggles with the slave
power.

"The meeting opened, officers
were chosen and committees ap-
pointed. Mr. Quincy, of course,
was chairman. He seemed much as
usual, most decidedly the right man
in the right place, well versed in
rules, impartial, dignified: Mr. Gar-
rison sat on the platform, and near
him, Phillips. Thompson was pres-

ent, but excused himself from
speaking because of ill-health. No-
body came forward to speak, though
those wont to speak were there.
Mr. Phillips looked serious, a trifle
anxious perhaps. A manifest re-
luctance to commence a discussion
that must be stormy hung over all.
The hall rang with calls for 'Phil-
lips, Phillips,' but with unmoved
countenance that gentleman sat still.
Mr. Garrison touched him with his
umbrella, but made no impression.
Still the calls sounded. Mr. Garri-
son at last spoke to Phillips, who
shook his head, and Mr. G. got
up and said, 'The spirit did not
move Mr. P., and they must wait
till it did.' One or two short ad-
dresses followed before Mr. Fos-
ter opened the discussion of the
Presidential campaign. The ice was
broken and in they went! Mr.
Phillips went into an inner room
connecting with the platform, or
stood on the end of it at some dis-
tance from the speakers. Charles
Burleigh spoke very finely. . . .
Then came more wild calls for Phil-
lips, who looked more propitious
than before, but stood still, perhaps
to increase his value when he did
come. Quincy got up to try and
still the uproar. 'Mr. Phillips,' he
said, 'would come if he chose to and
wouldn't if he didn't.' A. says
they all treat Mr. P. as if he

725

726

REMINISCENCES OF WENDELL PHILLIPS

were a baby, and it must be con-
fessed he has his caprices. Rather
rough handling for a 'baby' he got
before that convention was through.

"At last Mr. Phillips began to
move forward, but by his delay he
had lost the chance. Mr. Wright
had the floor. Mr. Phillips came
on, till suddenly perceiving, he
stepped aside with a gesture of
apology. . . . Mr. Burleigh and Mr.
Phillips, as I said, were standing
side by side. In front and between
them sat Mr. Garrison, and the
tbree formed a triangle of remark-
able faces in perfect repose, — Mr.
Burleigh with his face so like the
portraits of Christ, Mr. Phillips
looking statue-like in the immobility
of his Roman features, and between
and below both, the purely American
face of William Lloyd Garrison. ';

The letter goes on to tell that dur-
ing one session a man got up in the
back of the hall and attacked Mr.
Phillips in terms that seemed to
imply that the orator had been criti-
cising some public officials "like a
biackguard," and when a wild up-
roar of disapproval greeted the in-
sinuation, the man retracted so far
as to say, "I grant Mr. Phillips that
he is a gentleman," a retraction
which caused much laughter, in
which Mr. Phillips joined. The
critic in the audience continued his
remarks undaunted, and finally said,
quoting from a speech that a young
man had made in another meeting
in Boston that same anniversary
week, "If Wendell Phillips woula
do as . . . did, kneel down and ask
counsel of God, he would change his
opinions." After this speech was
done, Samuel May of Leicester,

Massachusetts, "came forward, say-
ing he considered this remark 'a
piece of inexpressible cant' — cheers
and hisses — 'of inexpressible cant/
repeated Mr. May. 'What right
had that man to drag Wendell Phil-
lips praying or not praying before
a Boston audience? It was the
same thing as saying that Mr.
Phillips had gone through all this
work of thirty years without a God.
Surely there was no man in the
country who had shown more con-
clusively that God had been with
him in his life than Wendell Phil-
lips. Everybody knew that Mr.
Phillips was orthodox, of the Old
South Church orthodoxy. If he did
not pray, who had been his teach-
ers?' As M. and I," continues the
letter, "were coming out (of the
hall), we heard a man say, 'I know
what kind of praying Wendell Phil-
lips does. He sends food to the
hungry and clothing to the naked, —
and I know it, for I've carried them
for him.' "

In this letter I find that Mr. Phil-
lips's bearing on the platform when
not speaking is described as cu-
riously effective in its composure
and grace. He had a remarkable
way of seeming to withdraw his
eyes from sight, so that light and
color and shape were blotted out,
and then when he smiled, letting
them flash and gleam with extraor-
dinary vividness. His eyes were
light, a sort of blue, and not very
large.

His manner towards his oppo-
nents, as soon as debate was ended,
was affectionate, even to demon-
stiativeness.

"It's only Pickwickian," he said

REMINISCENCES OF WENDELL PHILLIPS

727

From the " Liberty Bell," 1845. The original was an etch-
ing by J. Andrews, from a daguerreotype by Southwick '

gayly to one who questioned him as
to the effect on their private feelings
of some rather heated discussion
into which personalities had crept.
"Rather hard on me," he character-
ized one marvellous oratorical at-
tack upon his position, "but none
the less eloquent for that." "I?
Oh, I'm as soft as silk," he answered
to another inquiry as to his contin-
ued friendliness to his critics and
antagonists.

Mr. Phillips's power over his hear-
ers was rather amusingly illustrated
at about this period of his career by
the experience of a friend of my
mother's, a man of brains and schol-
arship, afterwards president of a
college. This man really disagreed
quite seriously with Mr. Phillips on
some questions at issue among the
leading abolitionists, and he used

to go to the antislavery meetings
resolved to vote with the party in
opposition, but regularly, after hear-
ing Mr. Phillips, he would vote with
him. He would admit his vacilla-
tion and return to another session
of the convention, determined this
time to resist the orator's fascina-
tion, but when the vote came he
could not. "I can't help it," was his
only laughing plea for himself.

Some romantic stories were told
of Mr. Phillips's marriage in his
early youth to Ann Greene. It was
said that he fell in love with her at
first sight and that she converted
him to abolitionism, but apparently
the seeds of his future opinions had
been sowed before he met this ar-
dent girl Garrisonian, for he told a
friend that he and Charles Sumner
expected to be introduced to Ann at
the same time, and among a party of
young people who were to go to-
gether to a wedding, and that Sum-
ner and he disputed as to which was
the more likely to win her fa-
vor. "Charles," said Mr. Phillips,
"claimed that he had the better

From a silhouette made in London in 1841

Ann Greene Phillips

728

REMINISCENCES OF WENDELL PHILLIPS

chance because he had read the
Liberator longer than I had, — but
when the time came, I went and
Charles didn't."

Mrs. Phillips's health failed before
her marriage, and though she expe-
rienced a temporary recovery dur-
ing the first years of their union, she
led for from thirty to forty years
what was practically a shut in life.
We younger folk of the antislaverv
clan used to hear her spoken of as
if she were a sort of Egeria shut
away from all mortal eyes and ears,
save those of her husband, whose
thought and action she was said to
inspire and guide. That strenuous
natured woman, Abby Kelley Foster,
was one of the few intimate friends
who saw her more or less often.
Mrs. Foster had an intense admira-
tion for her. She considered her to
be gifted with an almost superhu-
man quality of sympathy and intui-
tion. "You never have to tell her
anything," said Mrs. Foster, "she
seems to know everything without
being told."

Once when he and she must have
been towards sixty years old, I
asked Mr. Phillips what he really
meant by his customary reply to in-
quirers that his wife was "about as
usual." He meant, he said, that she
was able to enjoy looking out of the
windows upon Essex Street, where
she saw a good deal of the stir of
life. This enjoyment of hers in
watching the passing wagons and
other vehicles was the reason they
preferred to reside on that street
after it had become a thoroughfare.
Sometimes, he continued, she came
down stairs to the floor below her
bedroom and looked around the

house, but she never stayed an hour
outside of her own chamber, and
never took a meal out of it. I have
heard that he ate all his meals with
her at her bedside, but he did not tell
me so. "She was a very lively, high-
spirited girl," he said, "when I first
knew her. It is as if she had ac-
quired some brightness and force in
those days which has stayed by and
borne her up through all these
years."

Of course there was another part
to the story, — a daily sacrifice by
him of social gayety, of home com-
fort and personal freedom in little
things. He told Mrs. Foster once
that every time he arose in the night
to do anything for her, he struck a
match to light the lamp, and one
morning, just before his talk with
Mrs. Foster, he had counted the
matches and found he had used
twenty-one in the previous night.

"I did not mean to lecture much
this winter," he said to my mother
after the execution of John Brown.
"I promised Ann in the fall that I
would stay at home and be a very
good husband, but there came this
Harper's Ferry affair, and I had to
break all my promises. But she en-
couraged me to do so."

I saw Mrs. Phillips twice, the first
time during my school days. Mrs.
Foster wanted me to see her, and
arranged it with Mr. Phillips. "It's
a sight," he said with tender humor,
"to see Ann." She made much the
same impression on my mind, both
times I saw her, though there was
an interval of fully fifteen years be-
tween the visits. She lay on a bed
in a small room, but during the first
visit she sat up and looked with

REMINISCENCES OF WENDELL PHILLIPS

729

frank eagerness over a box of flow-
ers which was brought to her, and
before I left, she got up on her feet
for a few minutes. She was of me-
dium size and her shoulders were
slightly out of shape, or so it seemed
to me. She had smooth brown hair,
very delicate features and the waxen
complexion that betokens the indoor
life of the invalid. She had a na'ive,
girlish way of speaking. I fancied
that her seclusion from society had
left her manner unchanged through
all her maturer years from what it
had been in the gay days of early
love and hope, when she and her
brilliant lover had been together in
the outer world. It struck me that
she had lived in an atmosphere so
free from criticism that she had
never tried to modify herself. "We
are one, you know," she said simply
and sweetly, speaking of herself and
her husband.

Shortly after both Mr. and Mrs.
Phillips died it was my fortune to
hear Frederick Douglass and Susan
B. Anthony talk together of the
dead orator. The voice of Douglass
came brokenly from his expressive
mouth, as he spoke of the time when
Wendell Phillips had walked a
steamboat deck with him all night,
refusing to go below and take a
berth, because such accommodation
was refused to Douglass on account
of his color. It was thrilling to hear
the old man, then honored and ac-
cepted, in spite of his color, tell of
that companionship in hardship, when
he was young and despised, and his
comrade was beautiful in self-sacri-
ficing youth. "That's the sort of
thing a man never forgets/' he mur-
mured.

Wendell Phillips at Fifty

Miss Anthony's reminiscence on
this occasion gave a different pic-
ture from that suggested by Doug-
lass, but the man of whom she told
was the same in old age as Douglass
had shown him to be in his splendid
youth, — one who sought to bear
another's burden. She said that she
had a talk with Mr. Phillips some
time within the last two or three
years of his life! It must have been
after he knew he had heart disease.
It was probably after he, at least,
suspected what the world learned
only after his death, that his prop-
erty had dwindled away, and that
he was a very poor man, liable to
leave his widow old and sick and
poverty stricken. He said to Miss
Anthony, "I remember seeing my
grandfather look out of the window
at my grandmother's funeral, and
hearing him say, 'I thank God I

730

REMINISCENCES OF WENDELL PHILLIPS

Phillips Entering His House,
5o Essex Street

have lived to see her go first.' I did
not understand his feeling then, but
I know now what it was. I have
lived to have every hope and desire
merge itself and 'be lost in the one
wish that I may outlive Ann."

That wish was not granted. He
died and left his wife to the chances
of care from others. This was
given, however, by friends and rela-
tives, and the household upon which
her comfort depended was maintained
until her death, about two years after
his.

One of the pretty stories told of
Mr. Phillips is that he found pleas-
ure in stealing up to children whom
he saw gazing with wistful hope-
lessness into shop windows and

slipping money into their hands.
"I think," said the person who re-
lated this, "if they see his face as he
passes, they must think it is that of
an angel."

It was reported after Mr. Phil-
lips's death that he had destroyed
before his last sickness all the notes
and evidences of indebtedness which
he held against any persons. Pie
had helped many people during his
lifetime with small loans. He left
them all free at the end. Possibly
a certain kindly humor was mingled
with the impulse which led him to
make it sure that his death should
on no account increase a burden
which he could lighten for any
weary heart. Perhaps he knew that
only trouble for them and not
money for "Ann" could come of any
attempt to collect these notes. He
once made the statement to a friend,
that with a single exception he had
never been repaid when he had lent
money merely as a kindness, "in," he
said, "the small sums one lends for
such a reason, fifty or a hundred dol-
lars, and I have made," he added, "a
great many such loans. The one man
who paid me back," he continued,
smiling, "was a crank about money
matters and had conscientious scru-
ples against giving a note. T hope
you don't mind, Mr. Phillips,' said
he, 'I can't give you a note for this
money, but I assure you it won't
make any difference about my pay-
ing it back.' And I murmured, 'Oh,
dear, no, I don't mind. It won't
make any difference.' I hadn't any
idea it would. I supposed he would
do as the others did, but he actually
paid me back."

Mr. Phillips was one of the very

REMINISCENCES OF WENDELL PHILLIPS

731

Wendell Phillips at Seventy

few radical abolitionists who went
through the struggle with church
and state in which the antislavery
conflict involved them without
such modification of original ortho-
doxy as made itself more or less
publicly evident. To just what hue
Mr. Phillips's theology became
finally shaded I never knew or
heard, or whether, indeed, it was
shaded at all from Calvin's color.

He was absolutely opposed to re-
ligioLis intolerance, — so much so that
he objected to the use of the word
"tolerance" to express the right re-
lation of the believer to the heretic.
"I no more tolerate the infidel, than
he tolerates me," he used to say.
"He has the same right that I have."
This seems a moderately self-evi-
dent statement now, but it had the
force almost of pure originality,

732

REMINISCENCES OF WENDELL PHILLIPS

when he made it in the Boston
which had but recently closed its
pulpits to Theodore Parker.

In the years immediately succeed-
ing the Civil War, Mr. Phillips told
my mother that he considered the
work of the Free Religious Associa-
tion "a good thing, but that he was
himself too busy to take any part in
it." On one occasion I heard him
speak somewhat freely as to his
own views and defend the orthodox
side in a theological discussion at
the Radical Club in Boston. My
impression is that he devoted him-
self chiefly to asserting the super-
natural character of Jesus Christ,
and that he based his belief in that
supernaturalism upon the historical
results of Christ's work on earth,
as being beyond what was possible
for a mere human being to accom-
plish. He was, I remember, listened
to with a respect amounting to def-
erence and almost to reverence, by
a company of prominent thinkers on
theological subjects, nearly every
one of whom differed fundamentally
from him in opinion. After the
formal discussion was over John T.
Sargent, the host of the club, a
"liberal" in theology, very small in
person, and perhaps larger in heart
than in head, went around the room
smiling benignantly and assuring us
all in bits of side talk, that "Wen-
dell had been so busy all his life in
working for these great causes that,
you see, he had had no time to think
about theological matters," and he
implied very emphatically that if
"Wendell" had taken the time to
think over his creed, he would, of
course, have known better than to
remain orthodox.

Notwithstanding his failure to ap-
preciate the moral and intellectual
value of the dramatic art, Mr. Phil-
lips was himself an artist and used
his own personality, his body and
his soul for the material of his art,
just as much as any actor on the
stage. This is not saying that he
was not sincere in his oratory, quite
the contrary, namely, that he was so
sincerely an orator that every atom
of his being moved in accord when
he made his great pleas for liberty.
It was not art for art's sake, it was
that higher art which unites itself
because of its own perfectness with
the moral passions and declares the
truth as the artist sees it. He has
been described as seeming like a
marble statue, cool and white, while
a stream of lava issued red-hot from
its lips. His coolness was only ap-
parent, and as a friend of his has
said, if you approached him, you
felt that his quietness was only the
stillness of intense passion, and you
realized that he was no marble
statue, but that he bore within him
a soul which burned always at the
point of white heat.

When Mr. Phillips arose to ad-
dress an audience, there was a mo-
mentary timidity in his manner. It
was graceful and controlled timidity,
showing itself in the slow pronun-
ciation of his first words, which in-
deed were not very audibly spoken.
This manner soon glided into that
of sustained and artistic oratory. It
was said that he was always really
frightened when he began his
speeches and his own description of
his feelings was, "that it seemed to
him the height of presumption for
him to stand before an audience and

REMINISCENCES OF WENDELL PHILLIPS

733

pretend that he had anything to say
that had made it worth while for
them to have come to hear him."

All testimony as to Mr. Phillips's
behavior in the presence of mobs
asserts him to have been possessed
of superb physical courage, and en-
dowed on such occasions with a fine-
ness of manner which bore shining
witness to the gentlemanly quality
in his blood. One of my friends saw
him face an infuriated New York
mob. He stood on the platform,
controlling their passions as if the
emotions of men were his play-
things, alternately rousing his lis-
teners to rage by some defiant ut-
terance of opinions that they hated,
and exciting them to laughter by his
wit. Once some of the leaders
rushed forward and cut a curtain
rope and cried out that they would
hang him. "Oh, wait a minute,"
said he quietly, "till I tell you this
story." The Rev. Mr. Berle "on
one occasion when General Miles
was in Boston, asked him what was
the bravest thing he had ever seen.
The general said that it was the de-
livery of a speech by Wendell Phil-
lips in Music Hall. -After it the
speaker quietly left the hall and
went to his home while a mob of
ten thousand men howled around
thirsting for his blood."

On that May day of 1863, when
the 54th Massachusetts Regiment
made up of colored soldiers marched
through the city of Boston under
the leadership of Colonel Shaw, on
its way South to the walls of Fort
Wagner, the remnant of one of the
first regiments that the state had
sent many months before came back
to the city. I saw both processions,

that of the homeward bound veter-
ans, and that of the men who were
to go forth and prove the quality
of an untried race. I was with Mr.
Garrison, his daughter and a party
of friends in Mr. Phillips's house,
when the colored regiment swept
through Essex Street. We waited
its coming in a room which, so far
as I ever knew the house, appeared
to be at once the reception room and
Mr. Phillips's study. It contained as
its most prominent furniture a large
table, covered with pamphlets and
other papers, a big sofa, a bust of
John Brown and another of one of
the Bowditch family. Mr. Phillips
was not present with us, but Mr.
Garrison found him finally, and got
permission to take the bust of John
Brown and the Bowditch pedestal
out on the balcony. Miss Garrison
steadied the pedestal, and the bust
of the Harper's Ferry hero was
placed on it, and her father stood
beside the young girl as she held it
firm while the regiment went by,
and some of the officers lifted their
hats to the great abolitionist and his
daughter and to the symbol of a
consecration like their own. Mr.
Phillips, meanwhile, was in the room
above, watching the soldiers with
his wife.

Mr. Phillips came to see me in
New York in the autumn of 1878,
soon after my marriage. My hus-
band had been an old friend of his
in antislavery days, and he explained
to me that he would have come to
my wedding but that he was
obliged that very day to attend the
funerals of two old antislavery
women. He was rather sad during
this call. He was passing through

734

REMINISCENCES OF WENDELL PHILLIPS

New York on a lecturing trip. He
said he was not well enough to lec-
ture, but that it was necessary that
he should do it. His clothes were a
little shabby. He had his travelling
bag with him and it was a very worn
and defaced one. My mother, who
had known him long, was present,
and he said to her at parting, "You
must make much of me, you won't
have me long." I had reason after-
wards to suspect that it was just
about the time of this visit that he
had learned that he had an incurable
heart trouble, and probably his
money difficulties were also then
culminating.

A year later he called on us in
Boston and was much more cheer-
ful, although I think it was then
that he told us that many of his
relatives had died suddenly, and
he added that it was a very good
way to go. When his own time
came, not a very great while af-
terwards, he suffered for several
days before the heart entirely
failed. How little recreation he had
in the latter part of his life may
be inferred from the fact that
once he told me that he had not
made "a visit" since he had called
on me about twelve months previ-
ously.

In this chapter of reminiscences
I purposely refrain from much allu-
sion to the loneliness of heart which
came upon Mr. Phillips in conse-
quence of the alienation between
himself and some of his old co-
workers, an alienation which was
caused by differences of opinion as
to what was right or wise in the
conduct of the antislavery societies
in certain emergencies. These

friendships had been somewhat re-
stored and this pain relieved in the
latter years of his life, but the wound
to his affections was, I think, never
quite healed. I refer to it now, with-
out discussion in regard to who was
right or who was wrong in the mat-
ter, only to say that I several times
heard Mr. Phillips speak of the
trouble between himself and his
former associates, and that he inva-
riably spoke lovingly, gently and in
the tone of one who seeks to find ex-
cuse for the friend who has hurt
him.

Of one person, between whom and
himself there never was, so far as
I know, any misunderstanding, he
talked with such tender apprecia-
tion, that I am tempted to tell of his
sympathetic friendship for her, the
more because in the biographies of
her distinguished husband, compara-
tively little vivid portraiture of her
has been attempted. This was the
wife of Theodore Parker, a woman,
according to Mr. Phillips, of an ex-
quisite delicacy of nature, who
always did quietly the thing that it
was in the 'best taste to do. She
was, he said, too modest, and had
an idea that she was not intellectual
enough to talk with many of her
husband's friends, so she stayed in
the shadow, and let others fill the
foreground of social life at his house.
"I'm sure I don't know why," com-
mented Mr. Phillips. "She talked
very sensibly, and I liked to talk
with her much better than with Z.,"
and here he mentioned one of the
only two persons whom I remem-
ber hearing him ever speak of in a
tone of personal dislike. The other
was a man who had trouble with his

REMINISCENCES OF WENDELL PHILLIPS

7.1S

wife, and Mr. Phillips, calmly but
with much earnestness, informed me
that if he had been that wife's
brother he would simply have shot
the husband ! "There's nothing to
do with such a man but shoot him,"
naively remarked this upholder of
law and order against mob violence.

I met Mr. Phillips for the last
time during the winter before his
death. I found him on the sidewalk
looking at a comic print in the win-
dow. I took him in a carriage to
my own destination. He was not
wholly in sympathy with all the
methods that were being tried to
effect a civil service reform, and the
print had suggested to him some in-
cident which he told, relating to the
discharge from employment of an
old soldier. He spoke mournfully
during this brief ride of his wife's
condition and of their life. "We
sit and grumble together," he said,
but when I impulsively begged him
not to let sadness be the dominant
feeling of his life, he answered with
a peculiarly sweet smile which it
has always been good to remember.
I left him in the carriage with orders
to the driver to take him wherever
he wished to go, and did not dream
when I said good by, that I should
never see his face again till the
spirit had gone from it and his body
should lie in Faneuil Hall for the
throng to look upon.

Of his funeral I recall principally
its inevitable emotion, and the sight
of Frederick Douglass and his white
wife among the mourners, and the
figure of Oliver Wendell Holmes
marching with the other bearers up
the aisle of Hollis Street Church,
where in former days John Pier-

pont had preached for righteous-
ness. The funeral of Wendell Phil-
lips was the last occasion on which
the building was used for any re-
ligious service. It was then turned
into a temple of that art of which
Mr. Phillips appears not to have ap-
proved. The public funeral was ar-
ranged by the sons of William
Lloyd Garrison, but at the gate of
the city burial ground where the
body was first interred, the Phillips
family, who had loved their kinsman
but had not sympathized with his
career, took possession, and the Gar-
rison brothers gave up their charge
of the honored dust of Boston's
noblest orator. "I love beyond ex-
pression," he had said in one of his
speeches, "those Boston pavements
over which my mother held up my
baby footsteps." For two years his
mortal heart lay close to these echo-
ing pavements, but after his wife's
death his body was removed and
buried beside hers in a suburban
cemetery.

The following letters are given
that they may bear witness to the
sweetness which was a marked char-
acteristic of Wendell Phillips in
private life. The tone of compli-
ment running through them was un-
doubtedly habitual with him, and
their exquisite deference and cour-
tesy were due to the artistic element
in the man's nature which made it
necessary for him always to be as
graceful and gracious as possible,
especially if he were playfully refus-
ing some request made by his cor-
respondent. He had known her
from childhood in that kindly but
never intimate fashion in which a
childless man often knows and re-

736

REMINISCENCES OF WENDELL PHILLIPS

gards the children of people re-
moved from any close association
with his daily existence, but asso-
ciated with him by their sympathy
with his main purposes and labors
on this earth. The first is dated
Decoration Day,, but the year is not
given. It was probably in the late
sixties :

"My dear Young Friend: I am so sorry
I was out when you left those exquisite'
flowers. Perhaps I could have told you
better than I can write, how delighted
Mrs. Phillips would be. But then I should
not have been charged, as I am now, with
message; on message from her of thanks.

" 'She can't imagine — I hope she'll
never be able to — the pleasure they are in
a sick room. I don't believe you'll ex-
press it warmly enough. It was so
thoughtful, — tell her I'm ever so grateful.''

"So fancy (what I trust will ever be
only fancy for you) eight months' weak-
ness and pain, — then a little better and
just capable of enjoying such sweet and
dainty things, — then you'll feel, oh so
much better than I can tell you, what a
nice good friend you've been and how
truly I am most cordially yours,

"Wendell Phillips."

It was often his correspondent's
task to write to persons wanted by
individuals or societies, who were
getting up meetings of one sort or
another, and to urge their attend-
ance. She has several notes from
Mr. Phillips in response to such re-
quests. Once, two or three years
before his death, she succeeded in
persuading him to attend a woman
suffrage convention in a city distant
an hour or more from Boston. Her
heart smites her after all these
years to think what a burden she
laid upon a wearied man when she
got him to make the effort to come.
She fears that he received no recom-

pense for his services that day, but
that part of the arrangement did not
lie in her province, and it must be
remembered in excuse for the re-
formers who permitted the sacrifice
from him, that none of them had any
idea while he lived that he was not
a man of large property. He ad-
mitted playfully to his correspond-
ent that he came because she asked
him to, rather than out of regard for
the other folk in charge of the meet-
ing, and her consolation now is the
recollection that it was the only
time that he submitted to any such
imposition from her. At the meet-
ing he spoke in his usual vein on the
question of woman suffrage, claim-
ing that the state needed the votes
of women to secure its own moral
health, even more than women
needed the ballot for their protec-
tion. This occasion is deserving of
attention as a complete proof how
odd is the error which some recent
writer has made, in saying that Mr.
Phillips never publicly advocated
woman suffrage during the later
years of his life. He was very gra-
cious and interesting on the day of
this speech, told little scraps of Bos-
ton gossip, and submitted very gen-
tly to some rather daring suggestion
that his much criticised support of
Benjamin F. Butler was a matter
lacking entire justification in the
eyes of his companion. He defended
and explained himself with perfect
good nature and with that freedom
from the assumption of superiority
either as to knowledge or wisdom
which he always showed, whether
he were talking to a child or to a
grown person who had the right to
intellectual consideration.

REMINISCENCES OF WENDELL PHILLIPS

"Feb. 15.

"Dear Friend: Why don't you become a
lawyer? No jury could ever resist you.
How skilfully you group and marshal
your topics! How adroitly you suggest
what won't bear full statement! What
word painting and such unction! Ah, be
an advocate and we need not abolish
capital punishment, for with such an at-
torney to stand for him no one could be
hung.

"If suits like those which Wheeling
brought against the! brilliant New York
lady did not threat me I should have
packed carpet bag at once and surren-
dered to your orders, reporting for duty
wherever you assigned me. But always
trying to get far off enough to criticise
you, I had acquired the habit of resisting
in order to criticise and so stood proof
even against such a letter. I am literally
unable to come.

"But hurrah and ten thousand cheers for
Europe! Sink back into history in Eng-
land. Sun yourself in France. Bathe in
beautiful Italy, — make me crazy when I
think you'll see the Pyramids and laugh
in Damascus. Ah, if you do, can I do
anything but hate you in my envy? Con-
gratulate M and go and enjoy

yourself, remembering sometimes
"Yours,

"Wendell Phillips."

The next bears date a few years
later. Apparently he had answered
the invitation with the usual refusal
at the time of receiving it and then
three months later had impulsively
written a second reply :

"6th August, '77.

"Dear Friend: It was 6th May you wrote
that lovely coaxing note, — so hard to re-
sist. How do you justify yourself in
throwing such temptations to weary ones
of earth? But poor Massachusetts mor-
tals can't come to heaven just when they'd
like to. So I had to be obstinate, plant
my feet firm on solid earth and 'stick' as
Sumner advised.

"I never answered it and probably
never shall any way worth while. I

meant to do so, and have had gay clouds
of gorgeous hue floating half the time
ever since, before my eyes. But the
happy moment never comes and I have
about decided to own up that I cannot
Won't that do as well?

"As I re-read it just now I wonder
where I got the pluck to say no, and
plume myself on an immense amount of
moral power in adhering to anything
against such magnetism.

"But don't venture again, 'mankind are
unco weak,' you mind, and I might lose
all my fine feathers, give up solemn en-
gagements and come.

"I fancy you rollicking on some sea-
weed shore or far up among the hill mists
and 'calculate' (don't despise Yankee
traits) you'll see this about October, rus-
set time' or the age of 'rusty coats' as my
Welsh cook has it. Well, I wish it may
content you a tenth part as much as your
ninety-day-old note has charmed me to-
day.

"Since I saw you I've been where that
'baby' was talked of and we remembered
you all most affectionately as I do now.
"Yours faithfully,

"Wendell Phillips."

The next letter was written after
his correspondent had sent him a
newspaper article, the joint work of
herself and of Horace R. Cheney, a
young Boston lawyer, who died a
few years later at the beginning of
a brilliant career. He and she had
each written an article on some is-
sue then pending in Massachusetts
politics, which in some way affected
the cause of woman suffrage in
which both were believers. She had
then taken the two articles and
picking out what she deemed best
in both had put them together. The
styles of the two writers blended so
easily that in one or two cases half
a sentence was chosen from her
production and half from Mr.
Cheney's. This was all explained to

738

REMINISCENCES OF WENDELL PHILLIPS

Mr. Phillips, but he, being naturally
more interested in the girl's share in
the work than in that of Mr.
Cheney who was then unknown to
him, in his reply overrated her part
and the evidence of her ability. The
letter, however, though not entirely
deserved by the recipient, as well as
the one that follows, is worth noting
in any study of Wendell Phillips's
character, as they both reveal the
effort that he, a busy and half sick
man, was willing to make to help a
young creature find the proper path
for activity. They show also how
well this keen but sympathetic ad-
viser knew that the only way to in-
duce a young person of chaotic im-
pulses to work with steady purpose
was to persuade that person that she
was capable of doing work that
would amount to something.

"June ii, '71,
"Dear Friend: I read your article with
very great interest, expecting a good deal,
and finishing it in entire satisfaction. You
explain and defend a vital principle with
great clearness and force. . . . You say your
wish is to use life in the service of the
race. Let me suggest that as you es-
chew the platform, you do not neglect the
press. You evidently love that field, else
you couldn't do so well there. Your
quick epigrammatic way, flashing to a
conclusion, and never falling to a com-
monplace is just fitted for the prelss. Per-
haps you reluct at the effort. If so, a lit-
tle practice will make it easy. Now don't
force anything, but as topics suggest
themselves (they will if you watch and
turn your thoughts that way) write some-
thing for your local journal or for the
W . R. Journal* or for the Standard as
often as once in two or three weeks. It
will keep your blade bright, wonderfully
educate you and soon make your influ-
ence felt.

*He probably me.vit the Worn ms >s]J 'ouma) '.

"Plainly that's the way Providence calls
you to work. Rejoice that you've found
it and found it so clearly designated.
Nil sine labore, which means 'no great
thing without toil.' You must not con-
strue it literally since you've done much
already, and I guess without much toil.
Kindest regards to mother.
"Yours faithfully,

"Wendell Phillips.

"P. S. I would not advise* your confin-
ing yourself exclusively to reform topics,
though I'd keep you mostly there. D.
has not moral sense enough with all his
other good sense to see that he is de-
molished. I must not forget your friend
and co-worker, though I can discern only
your hand."

"Sept., '71.
"My dear Young Friend: I plan to va-
cationize this winter — shall speak very lit-
tle— and taking it lazily with old lectures
I plan to show myself only in new places.
So 'have me excused.'

"I'm glad to know you've found your
calling. Yes, the press. Talk through it.
In time I feel you'll break forth on the
platform. May I be there to rejoice and
applaud. With regards to home,
"Yours,

"Wendell Phillips."

The following letter was written
after the death of one of his cor-
respondent's brothers :

"April 24.

"Dear Friend: Your sad note reached
me to-day. My heart bleeds for you.
Mother has dark hours to live just now.
I know what such sorrow is, standing as
I have done over all that was left here of
what to me, though only a petted young
brother, was like a son. I shall never
forget the pang; it is keen and fresh yet.
How constantly God weans us from this
scene.

"But you have such a noble life to be
comforted by. He lived worthy of all your
highest hopes. It is great consolation
when we regret only the separation.

"I wish I could come to you. But

REMINISCENCES OF WENDELL PHILLIPS

739

HERE

WENDELL PHILLIPS resided during forty years,

DEVOTED BY HIM TO EFFORTS TO SECURE
THE ABOLITION OF AFRICAN SLAVERY IN THIS COUNTRY.

THE CHARMS OF HOME, THE ENJOYMENT OF WEALTH AND LEARNING

EVEN THE KINDLY RECOGNITION OF HIS FELLOW-CITIZENS,

WERE BY HIM ACCOUNTED AS NAUGHT COMPARED WITH DUTY.

HE LIVED TO SEE JUSTICE TRIUMPHANT, FREEDOM UNIVERSAL,

AND TO RECEIVE THE TARDY PRAISES OF HIS FORMER OPPONENTS.

THE BLESSINGS OF THE POOR, THE FRIENDLESS,

AND THE OPPRESSED ENRICHED HIM.

IN BOSTON
HE WAS BORN 29 NOVEMBER, 1811, AND DIED 2 FEBRUARY, 1884.

THIS TABLET WAS ERECTED IN 1894, BYORDER OFTHECITYCOUNCIL OFBOSTON,

TABLET ON THE BUILDING CCRfsER OF ESSEX STREET AND HARRISON AVENUE, BOSTON

worn down as I am by the hard winter, I
have just got through a heavy cold, and
am too weak to undertake so much. I
break all my promises here and am not
able to be with you. All I can give is my
heartiest sympathy. We have lived and
worked so long and intimately together
that your sorrows as your joys must al-
ways be mine. My tenderest regards to
your mother and brother.

"Yours faithfully,

"Wendell Phillips."

The concluding letters in this se-
ries were written after his corre-
spondent's marriage, and contain
pathetic hints of the burdens which
the old man carried with inadequate
strength until he died :

"Merrie Xmas and happy New Year,

my dear Mrs. X . Your very kind

note came the morning I left for a West-
ern lecture tour, and Mrs. Phillips was
too ill to answer it for me. Out West I
just managed to fulfil engagements by
sleeping all the time I was not talking.

"Hence this long delay in my reply. I
shall report at your rooms the first mo-
ment of leisure I can make, and trust it
will be soon; though these are my busiest
months when I rarely see any part of
Boston but railway stations.

"Ann would be delighted to see that
baby. She is not as well this winter as
usual. But if you'd take' the chance of
finding her, any hour after noon, able to see
folks, nothing would give her more pleas-
ure than a sight of that baby — so as to
instruct me — not to admire (that's a fore-
gone conclusion), but to admire with dis-
crimination. Kindest regards to J., and
believe me

"Yours faithfully,

"Wendell Phillips."

"My dear Mrs. X-

-: Wouldn't I be
delighted to take tea with J., you and that
baby! There's a climax now! But alas!
I'm due Monday in Batavia; of course
such an ignoramus as you, who never had
any teacher but T. D. W.,* cannot be ex-

*Theodore D. Weld, a prominent abolitionist in the
early days.

740

REMINISCENCES OF WENDELL PHILLIPS

pected to know where it is. The only
point of present interest is it necessitates
my leaving these dear east winds Sunday
at 6 P. M. So sip that fragrant tea and
fancy me 'far away on the billow/ i. e.
the rail, devoutly wishing I could have' a
cup. Kindest regards to J.
"Yours faithfully

'-Wendell Phillips."

'My dear Mrs. X-

-: . . . I believe I've
often been obliged to rally my forces and
resist your fascinating 'Come into my
(convention), said the Spider to the
Fly,' etc.

"Well, I shall have to do so now. 1 ac-
cept no invitations to speak, have given
up lecturing. I'm not very strong. Ann
is very ill. The city has taken my house,
and after forty years' stay I must move
and give this winter to clearing up the
rubbish of forty years.

"So I'm a home-keeping old man this
(year) and as Shakspeare tells us, 'home-
keeping youth have ever homely wits.'
That will account for the stupidity of my
note.

"Kindest regards to your mother, and
tell J. his stalwart face the other day
carried me back twenty years when he
used to give his countenance at anti-
slavery meetings, — yes and talk too. By
the way, make him talk at that conven-
tion, and fill my place to crowding.
"Cordially,

"Wendell Phillips."

your letter. But my wife has been so ill

for the last three months that I have done
nothing but help nurse her. She is help-
less; does not lift her head from the pil-
low without aid, cannot stand. We took
her in arms to the carriage to drive out
here to Waverley. But you shall not be
forgotten. Something from the home of
forty years and the picture Black insisted
on taking I will see you have in due time.
Do excuse this long delay and silence. . . .
"Faithfully yours,

"Wendell Phillips.'*

The next note came many months
later, and accompanied a photo-
graph of the Essex Street house
with Mr. Phillips standing at the
doorway. The sheet is indorsed in
his correspondent's handwriting,
"Last letter received from Wendell
Phillips, about Christmas time,
1883." Like most of his notes it is
undated :

"My dear Mrs. X

promise and is not

— : Did I not
Xmas with its

"16th Aug.

: Don't think I

forgot you or could neglect your wish or

'My dear Mrs. X-

merrie greeting just the time to keep
promises? If I promised anything more,
please remind me, by which means I shall
have the pleasure of seeing your sign
manual.

"My poor wife lies patient in weary
helplessness, and my employment and
pleasure is waiting on her.

"All loving messages of the season for
mother, J. and the baby.
"Thine,

"Wendell Phillips."

A Puritan Maid

By Emilia Elliott

ND what will Roger say,
sweetheart?" Mercy asked.
"Methinks this coming- of
a gay court gallant will be
but little to his liking."

"The stranger is my father's kins-
man," Prudence said.

Mercy's eyes sparkled. "Think'st
thou he will have a cloak slashed
with crimson? A feather in his cap?
A—"

"A cloak slashed with silver, not
crimson; a feather in his cap, and a
trusty sword at thy service, fair lady,"
echoed a gay voice behind them.

Both maids sprang up, and Pru-
dence came forward, with startled,
downcast eyes.

"Thou art Master Hugh Evans?
Thou art welcome. This be my gos-
sip, Mistress Mercy Merritt."

"And thou art my cousin, Mistress
Prudence," Hugh said. Then bowing
low: "A thousand pardons for in-
truding so unceremoniously, but the
maid-servant bade me step this way.
And the picture that met my eyes,
being one not to let slip lightly, 1
was fain to feast my eyes awhile.
Still, on my honor, fair cousin, I did
cough, to gain thy attention ; though,
in truth, not over-loudly."

" 'Twas my idle tongue that was in
fault," Mercy said, with a little co-
quettish upward glance.

"Wilt not sit thee down, before
the fire? I will fetch thee some

refreshments," Prudence murmured
shyly.

"Nay, trouble not. I want no bet-
ter refreshment than to watch two
such winsome maids at their work."

But Prudence's sense of hospitality
would admit of no such course. She
slipped away, leaving Mercy to en-
tertain the newcomer, — a task Mercy
accepted most willingly.

"Scarce a quarter of an hour hath
he been here," she thought; "yet
thrice hath he told us we are fair.
'Tis doubtless but the way of court
gallants — yet a way I would our
stupid country lads would acquire."
Then lifting her dark eyes she said:
" 'Twas a long journey to this strange
land, Master Evans. One scarce
worth the trouble."

"Nay, am I not repaid already? But
thou speakest true; 'twas a long
journey. Hast e'er been in good old
England?"

"I have scarce been a day's ride
from this wearisome village. Pru-
dence hath been to Boston with her
father. They are close companions,
for all he is such a silent man. Thou
knowest the lass hath no mother?"

"Yea, poor maid. My uncle is the
parson here?"

"Aye; a most godly man. Pru-
dence taketh after him."

" 'Twere easy to see that ; she hath
a sweet, serious face."

Mercy glanced up archly. "Alas,

741

742

A PURITAN MAID

I can make but little claim — for
piety."

"There be few who can," Hugh
answered, thoughtfully.

Mercy bent over her needlework
with hot cheeks. Had she been too
forward? She had been so sure he
would seize the opportunity to make
some pretty speech. Were all men
stupid alike? Good! Here came
Prudence with her tray. How quickly
he sprang to take it from her! With
what courteous words of thanks!
And that look in his eyes. Was it
possible that Prudence's sober face
was more attractive than her own
sparkling one?

"They make good housewives in
this far land," Hugh said, looking at
the bountifully spread tray.

"I trust we shall make it seem less
far," Prudence ventured shyly.

"That thou hast already done," was
the answer.

Gradually Prudence's timidity van-
ished. The stranger was her kins-
man. That meant much. And he
had a gentle, winning way. Despite
rich attire and bearing of the world,
Prudence felt that at heart Master
Evans was not far different from
the sober Puritan lads of her
acquaintance — Roger, for instance.
Roger might be more serious
and devout, but his grave eyes
met one no more steadily than
Hugh's brave, blue ones. There
was the same honest light in
both. In return, Hugh watched his
cousin with ever deepening interest.
What a pretty picture she made, in
the quaint garb which became her so
well ; whereas Mercy's quiet colors
seemed ill-suited to her dark, flashing
eyes and saucy face. What a dainty

little lady of the manor Prudence
would make, he thought. He could
see her standing in the old hall, the
sunlight falling through the stained
windows on her head.

She was all unconscious of the ex-
pression in his eyes, but Mercy saw
and understood. Did he think that
Parson Evans would ever consent to
his only child marrying any mere
worldling? Besides, there was Roger
— that was as good as settled — in the
parson's mind, at least. Still this
new cousin was well favored. If
Prudence should think so, too —
Mercy rose suddenly. "I must away,
sweetheart. I would I had seen be-
fore how the dusk was creeping on."

Hugh rose too. "An' thou do not
let me see thee safe home, Mistress
Mercy, I will swear thou art wrongly
named."

Mercy courtesied low. "No man
shall call me unmerciful," she said,
letting him help her with her cloak,
in a way Prudence deemed verging
toward the overbold.

Left alone, Prudence sat a few
moments looking idly into the bright
fire, a new thoughtfulness in her eyes.
Presently she went to draw the
heavy window curtains. How fast the
winter twilight came on. 'Twould^be
a clear night ; Roger would be here.
Prudence shivered. She hated the
thought of Roger's riding alone
through the lonely country wastes.
There had been hints of trouble with
the Indians of late.

Then quick steps sounded in the
hall without. Prudence's face lighted
up; Master Hugh had made good
time. On the threshold Hugh
stopped a moment. The room was
bright with firelight ; the crimson

A PURITAN MAID

74 3

curtains, falling in thick folds, shut out
the night. Against one of them stood
Prudence ; the deep color setting off
her quiet gown, the snowy kerchief
and quaint cap.

"Didst find it cold?" Prudence
asked ; noting, in turn, the jaunty
figure in the doorway ; the green
cloak, slashed with silver, flung
lightly back ; the plumed cap held in
hand.

"Aye ; cold enough." Hugh came
to stancl beside her, telling of his
walk with Mercy. Suddenly he said,
his tone changing, "I hear there be
trouble feared with the Indians."

Prudence leaned forward, her gray
eyes raised in fright. "Oh, I trust 'tis
naught but rumor. I would my father
were here — and Roger."

"Nay, sweet cousin; I meant not
to fright thee so. Perchance 'tis idle
gossip, and even if more serious, why
there be brave men at hand to teach
the rogues a lesson. Naught shall
harm thee that I can help."

Prudence held out a hand. "I be-
lieve thee," she said simply.

The door opened and a young man
entered the room, half halting in sur-
prise.

"Roger," Prudence cried, spring-
ing forward. "I have been troubled
for thee. Surely thou art over-late."
She turned towards Hugh. "Roger,
this is my kinsman, Master Hugh
Evans, come to-day."

Roger bowed stiffly. Hugh re-
sponded coldly. He resented the dis-
pleasure in Roger's eyes.

"Give me thy cloak, Roger," Pru-
dence said. "Father will be at home
ere long. He is most anxious to hold
converse with thee, .concerning thy
last sermon ; Goodman Mason

brought word 'twas a most edifying
discourse."

The young parson had drawn a
chair close to the fire. "I would thou
couldst have heard it, Prudence.
'Twas on the vanity of worldly
things."

Prudence detected a slight acceni
on the "worldly." For the first time
in her life, she dared to criticise
Roger in her heart. "Cousin Hugh,"
she said, calling him so for the first
time, "wouldst have thought worldli-
ness my besetting sin?"

"On my faith, no, sweet cousin.
Worldly! Then were the wood
violet worldly."

Prudence blushed at the compli-
ment. Roger's face grew more stern.

"Think'st there will be trouble
with the redskins, sir?" Hugh asked,
striving to speak in friendly fash-
ion.

" 'Tis to be feared," Roger an-
swered, shortly. He turned towards
the fire again. At present trouble far
more serious, to him, than any Indian
attack seemed threatening.

"Prudence, I crave thine earnest
attention."

Prudence looked up at the grave
face beside her. She was in the big,
sunny kitchen, her sleeves rolled up,
her round white arms moving briskly
as she kneaded her bread. Roger
had her at a disadvantage, she
realized, glancing helplessly about
the kitchen, empty save for Roger
and herself. Deborah was busy above
stairs, Nanny in the linen room. It
was Thursday morning, and ever
since Roger's arrival, the Monday be-
fore, he had been seeking such an op-
portunity and she avoiding it. She

744

A PURITAN MAID

sighed apprehensively. "Canst not
see how busy I am, Roger?"

"With thy hands ; not head nor
heart, Prudence. Tis a question of
the latter."

"Father ever saith my heart is in
my task."

: 'Tis no jesting matter, Prudence."
Roger hesitated. "Sweetheart, thou
must know what I would ask thee;
what hath been my heart's desire
since we were but lad and lass to-
gether. Perchance, 'twould have
been better, an' I had not waited so
long to speak to thee. But I had set
my heart on having a home first to
offer thee. I have it now, sweetheart.
I have my charge. But my heart mis-
gives me; I am not to have thee,
Prudence." He waited. Would not
Prudence speak and drive all his
doubts and fears away?"

There was the sound of steps on
the garden walk without ; a gay tune
lightly whistled ; from the window a
glimpse of satin cloak and nodding
plume. Prudence bent lower over
her work, her face flushed hotly.
Roger's face darkened. Was this
stranger, scarce three days here, to
win where he must lose, after years
of patient service?

"Sweetheart!" his whole heart was
in the cry. "Hast no word for me,
no word of hope?"

"Wilt not wait a little longer,
Roger?" Prudence asked wistfully,
not looking up.

"Wait? Nay, I will have an an-
swer now. Prudence, be warned in
time ; thou knowest not the ways of
the world."

"What meanest thou?" Prudence
drew herself up proudly.

"Pardon, sweetheart," Roger an-

swered gently. "Take thine own
time. An' it be not 'yea' to-day, I
trust it may be so to-morrow."

"I would, for thy sake, it might be
so to-day, Roger," Prudence said.

Roger turned and went slowly from
the room. As he did so Prudence
heard a slight rustling noise in the
entry leading into the garden.
"Pussy!" she called; "thou must bide
a bit." But when, a moment later, she
went to let in her pet, the entry was
empty. Prudence opened the outer
door. Near the stile at the end of the
garden Mercy stood, talking to
Hugh. She waved a hand to Pru-
dence. As she stood in the open
doorway, with the sunshine on her
face, Mercy, turning to her compan-
ion, was quick to note the expression
in his eyes. " 'Twas liking the other
day — 'tis more than that now," she
thought. "A sweet maid, Master
Evans," she said softly; "she will
make the young parson a good wife."

"They are betrothed?"

"Perchance I should not tell.
'Twas by chance I o'erheard him
asking her. A mere form, since they
have been as good as betrothed since
childhood."

"A child's choice is not always
that of the man or woman's."

"True, sir, but there be times when
it is. They be well matched. Thou
wilt say naught about it, Master
Evans? I would not have Prudence
think I had been gossiping about
her."

Prudence sat with folded hands be-
fore the fire, looking earnestly into
the dancing flames ; as if in them
she might read the answers to the
questions troubling her. Why could
she not give Roger the answer he

A PURITAN MAID

745

had craved? A month — nay a week —
ago and she would have done so.
Why it had all been as good as set-
tled long ago. Was it not her father's
wish? She had been well content
once— but now. Through the quiet
house came the sound of low whis-
tling— not lightly, gayly, now, but
slow ; and with a strange sad strain,
running through the simple tune,
that made Prudence start and quiver,
yet hold her breath to hear.

The whistling ceased. Prudence's
eyes went back to the fire. And
about Hugh — was it her fancy, or
had there been a change in him to-
day?

"What shall I offer thee, for thy
thoughts, sweet cousin?" a voice
asked, from behind her chair.

"I did not hear thee enter. 'Tis
little worth my thoughts would be to
thee."

"More than gold, sweet cousin,
an' among them were but one of
me." i

Prudence looked up, a new soft
light in her eyes. "Thou shalt know,
then, that I was even thinking of
thee, as thou entered." Hugh bent
quickly forward. "And of Roger,"
she added hastily, frightened at her-
self and by his sudden gesture.
Hugh drew back.

Sunday came, and despite the res-
olutions, made daily, to return to
Boston, and from thence as soon as
possible to sail for England, Hugh
still lingered in the quiet Puritan
home. Every hour, every moment,
that he stayed, but made it harder
for him. How couldi he go away
and leave this sweet faced, gentle
cousin to marry yon stern Puritan
parson?

Sunday morning was clear and
bright. During the night snow had
fallen and now the quiet street lay
white in the winter sunlight. As
Hugh walked with Prudence to
church, and later sat beside her, in
the bare chill meeting-house, he
thought of the old ivy grown church
at home. He saw Prudence in the
great, square, family pew ; her pure,
serious face winning the hearts of
all the curious village folk, come to
stare at "young master's wife, from
over seas." 'Tis to be feared he paid
but scant attention to Parson Evans's
elaborate discourse. In the singing
of the hymn 'twas only Prudence's
voice he heard. But when at its
close she turned slightly towards him
and he saw her reverent face, he felt
a sudden feeling of compunction, and
bowed low and humbly for the bene-
diction.

Then breaking sharply the silence,
following the words of peace and
blessing, rang an all awakening cry,
"The Indians! The Indians! Help
for the poor people in the next vil-
lage."

In a flash the congregation were on
their feet and crowding round the
messenger, standing breathless in the
doorway. Already many had grasped
their guns and stood waiting the
word to start. Mothers, white-faced
and trembling, caught their little
ones to them.

It was the old story of a village
surprised; the old heartrending story
of bloodshed and fiendish torture.
Hearing it Hugh's blood rose hotly,
his eyes flashed. "Come on," he
cried; "why tarry? Let us go give
those foul fiends a lesson."

Parson Evans raised his hands.

746

A PURITAN MAID

"Aye, we will go, some of us not to
return. Let us first implore help
mightier than ours."

During the brief prayer Hugh felt a
cold hand slipped into his, and in spite
of the excitement, the awe of the
moment, felt a brief sensation of joy.
"Sweetheart," he murmured ; "thou
wilt not forget thy prayers for me?"

"Prudence," — it was Mercy's voice,
— "thou art strangely white. Take
heart, Master Evans will mind
'tis Roger's village. He will not for-
get Roger."

Prudence turned away conscience
stricken. How could she have
thought only of the man riding away,
to perhaps worse than death, and
forgotten the one who, even now,
might be beyond earthly aid?

It was a weary, weary Sunday.
Towards the twilight Deborah came
running into the room where Pru-
dence was pacing restlessly up and
down. "Thy father is coming; there
be others with him, some sorely
wounded."

"Is everything in readiness, as I
commanded?" Prudence asked. She
went to give some further directions.
She could not join the crowd hurry-
ing to meet the returning party.
When all was ready she went to wait
in the wide hall, within the shadow
of the opened door.

Parson Evans came first. "Coin-
age, dear heart. Roger is sore-
wounded, but I trust not unto death.
Our kinsman is a gallant lad, Pru-
dence. Roger and I owe our lives to
him, under God. Come now, thou
wilt not shrink from the sight of
blood?" For Prudence had shrunk
back, covering her face with two
trembling hands.

Parson Evans led her to an ad-
joining room, then went away.
Roger lay there, blood-stained and
weary. He stretched out his hands
yearningly. "Sweetheart!"

She stood still. "And Hugh?"
she cried, not knowing the wild long-
ing in her voice.

"Alas, brave lad, we fear the worst.
But hast no word of welcome for
me, Prudence?"

She turned, as if to go. She had
no word of welcome for him, though
snatched from death itself, when
Hugh had not come.

"Sweetheart!" Roger cried feebly,
"hast no word — for the sake of what
has been? God knows I knew not
my life had cost him his liberty, or
worse. Thy father told me that, after
I had recovered consciousness. An'
I had been able I would have turned
back to try and save him."

But Prudence was kneeling beside
him, begging him, with tears, to for-
give her. Roger closed his eyes
wearily. "There is naught to for-
give," he said.

Prudence looked at the pale strong
face, always rather stern when in re-
pose. It was scarred and blood-
stained now, with lines of pain and
grief about the firm mouth. A rush
of feeling came over her ; sorrow,
contrition, she knew not what. Bend-
ing nearer, she kissed the tired face.
Roger opened his eyes and smiled up
at her. "Thanks, sweetheart," he
murmured.

Flushed and trembling, Prudence
fled away, not hearing the sadly
spoken words that followed: "E'en
though 'twas pity, not love, that
prompted thee."

For more than a fortnight Rogei

A PURITAN MAID

747

hovered between life and death.
There were not wanting wise and
faithful nurses, among the village
folk, to do their best for the young
parson. They would scarce allow
Prudence in the sick room. "Keep
thyself 'gainst the weary gettin' well
days, my maid," Goody Howe would
say. Goody was chief nurse. "He
would not know thee from me
now, dear heart," she would add sigh-
ing-.

But one afternoon, Goody being
off duty for a while, Prudence stole
into the sick room. As she stood
looking sorrowfully down at him,
Roger opened his eyes. The wild
feverish light was gone, but their sad-
ness cut her to the heart. Bending
over, she said gently, "Thou dost
know me, Roger? Goody was
wrong. . It will not hurt thee, an' I
stay beside thee awhile?"

He tried to smile up at her. "The
sight of thee is better than medicine,
sweetheart."

With a sudden impulse, Prudence
bent closer still. "Roger, dost mind
our talk that morning? Only get
well, Roger, and it shall be 'yea' as
soon as thou wilt."

Roger's face grew radiant. Was
it all a troubled dream, the memory
of that night of the masscre? Was
Prudence to be his, after all?

For a few days his joy lasted.
Then, with returning strength, came
other thoughts, that would not be
driven back. One day as Prudence
sat beside him, he forced himself to
face them once for all. He had been
lying silent, watching the quiet face
before him; patient it was, and reso-
lute, but there was no added light of
joy in the gray eyes — rather their

wistfulness pained him. "Ha'st heard
aught of thy gallant cousin?" lie
asked softly, taking Prudence off her
guard.

Her eyes turned involuntarily to
the window, with its outlook down
the long village street. "The rescu-
ing party were able to find no trace,"
she answered simply.

"Poor lad. Perchance he will yet
escape. It is a brave life to be cut
off thus."

"My father hath no such hope."
In spite of her efforts, her voice
trembled.

"Unless too sorely wounded, he will
surely make the venture."

Again Prudence turned to the
window, an eager restless look in her
eyes.

Roger's voice recalled her. "Sweet-
heart, I would speak to thee. We
will ever be true friends, thou and I.
We can never be naught nearer."

Prudence understood and for a
moment could not help the look of
relief in her eyes. The next she said
earnestly, "Nay, let me try, Roger.
Why should both of us suffer? By
and by it will come to be, as in the old
days. Oh, why am I so wrong!"

"Thou art not wrong. Forgetful-
ness comes not at will. List, sweet-
heart, think'st thou I could be content
with the old quiet Prudence, now I
have seen thine eyes alit, thy face
alive with feeling? And now leave
me to rest. Wilt tell thy father I
would have speech with him this
evening?"

It was a wild winter night, three
years after the Indian outbreak.
Prudence had drawn her wheel close
to the cheery fire, and its busy hum

748

A PURITAN MAID

was the only sound that broke the
stillness of the room. Outside the
snow was falling with a steady per-
sistency; while the wind whistled
about the house and roared in the
wide chimney. Prudence thought
anxiously of her father, out in the
storm. Of Roger, riding sturdily
through it, as of old. Of Hugh —
where was he, poor lad, to-night?

The sudden closing of the house
door roused her. She heard the
maids cry out, in swift alarm; then
steps in the hall without. Prudence
sprang up with startled eyes and
white face. Ah, how well she remem-
bered those steps! But how could
it be! The door opened and Hugh
entered.

The satin cloak and plumed cap
were gone; the once bright fearless
face was seamed and marked with
signs of suffering. For a moment
the sight of the warm firelit room,
with its sense of peace and comfort,
of Prudence standing, as of old, by
her spinning wheel, overpowered him.
He stood as one in a dream ; afraid
to move, lest the wakening come.

Prudence was the first to speak.
vShe came forward, with hands out-
stretched. "Oh, thou hast suffered
cruelly," she cried, "and thou art ill,
but at home, at last. We will take
good care of thee now."

He caught her hands. "Wilt care
for me, cousin? Then will these
three years count for nothing."

Prudence smiled, though her lips
were quivering. "Methinks thou art
not so greatly changed, after all."

4T thought to find thee in a home
of thine own, cousin," Hugh an-
swered hesitatingly. "But 'twas thus
I have always pictured thee; thou
canst not think how often."

Prudence turned away. "I have
been well content, in my father's
home. I will bring thee some refresh-
ment. Hast travelled far?"

But he detained her. "The sight
of thee is refreshment enough. Let
me have thee to myself a moment
more. Thy father will be coming-
soon and, doubtless, the young
parson."

"Then come to> the fire and rest.
My father will be here ere long.
Roger I cannot speak for. Tell me
of thy escape."

"Later, cousin. Let me forget
awhile I have ever been away."

"We are much in thy debt. Thou
acted more than nobly."

' 'Twas to save thee sorrow, cousin.
'Twas something to be able to carry
out thy last commission."

"My commission?"

"Aye, concerning Master Drayton."

" 'Twas Mercy bade thee thus.
Alas — " She stopped shortly.

"Alas, what, sweetheart?" He was
standing close to her, an eager look
in his haggard eyes.

"I grieve to say that my thoughts
were not of Roger then," she
faltered.

"Of whom, sweetheart?" he cried,
drawing her towards him.

Prudence looked bravely up into
the eyes above her. "Canst not
tell?" she whispered.

Indian Money in the New England

Colonies

By Frederic Austin Ogg

SOME one has compiled a list
of twenty-two distinct ways
in which the name Shaks-
pere has been spelled. It
would not be difficult to prepare
quite as imposing a one of the word
used by the early settlers of New
England to denote the Indian's
money. Its most common form is
wampum, and so we shall use it in
this paper, but we might just as
properly speak of "wampumpeage,"
or "wampumpeake," or "wampum-
peg," or "wampumpig." Indeed if
we were to follow the writers of many
of the colonial records which have
come down to us we should refer to
it simply as "peage," or even "peg."
The term in its fuller form carries
substantially the meaning "strings
of white beads," though, as we shall
see, wampum might be made of beads
of other colors, black or blue, or of
combinations of colors.

If one wished to indicate the most
obvious characteristic of the Indians
of the Atlantic seaboard at the time
of the English settlement in New
England he could not perhaps make
better selection than their general
eagerness to possess and display large
quantities of wampum. It meant all
to the Indian that money does to us,
and infinitely more. Not merely did
it serve him as a medium of ex-

change and a standard of values, but
worn as an ornament it was his badge
of wealth and position, in the hands
of the chiefs his record book and
ledger, and through the favor of the
Great Spirit its possession became
in no small degree the passport to the
happy hunting grounds of the future
world. The use of wampum consti-
tuted a bond of union among the
Indians such as was scarcely supplied
by language, religion or racial cus-
toms.

Wampum was made from shells,
•usually clam or oyster, and it is
therefore not surprising that the
coast-dwellers were the most prolific
producers of it. The black beads
were made from the dark "eye" of
the shell, the scar indicating the point
of muscular attachment, while the
white ones were taken from the
outer parts. Black beads were
known as sacki, white ones as
ivonipi, and the black were usually
considered twice as valuable as the
white.

This led early to the practice of
counterfeiting. At first a compara-
tively easy task, after it became
more general and losses by reason of
it more frequent, it came to be about
as hard to counterfeit a black bead
successfully as to make one from the
outset. The shrewd Indian trader

749

INDIAN MONEY

soon became as skilful in detecting
this sort of trickery as the bank ex-
pert of to-day is in picking out from
a heap of coins any that may not
have been legally made. The
colonists, however, never became so
practised in the art, and many of
them were, again and again, victims
of this particular form of Indian
knavery.

The beads themselves were simply
little shell cylinders about one-eighth
of an inch in diameter and one
fourth of an inch in length. They
were polished smooth by being
rubbed against stones and were
bored hollow by means of a flint awl,
many of which are still to be found
in the shell heaps along the New
England coast. In boring the beads
the workman used a cane or reed,
tipped with this stone awl, which he
rolled continually on his thigh with
his right hand, holding the bit of
shell in his left. After the coming oi
the English, iron awls were substi-
tuted, but even then the process of
manufacture must have been ex-
tremely tedious. It is said that by
a day's hard labor it was barely pos-
sible for a workman to produce fifteen
cents' worth of wampum. Whether
the work was done by the men or
by the women cannot be known, but
it may well have been shared by both.
It required not only a vast amount
of patience — such as only the Indian
possesses — but also a considerable
degree of skill ; for they must be per-
fect in shape, free from cracks, irreg-
ularities or flaw. The Indian trader
demanded that his wampum be as
sound and perfect as the present day
merchant expects Uncle Sam's new
minted coins to be. It was the labor

involved in their making that gave
the beads a purchasing power so
much in excess of that of the un-
wrought fresh water shells which
archaeologists believe were used as
currency in the remoter inland re-
gions.

After the making came the arrang-
ing of the beads. They were usually
strung on fibres of hemp or on ten-
dons taken from the animals slain for
food, though some were left loose foi
"pin money." The strings were of
various lengths, determining different
values. Sometimes they were sewed
on strips of deerskin, forming belts
of any width desired, often as much
as four or five inches. For such a
belt more than ten thousand beads
would be required, the strings often
mixed in color, even as the individual
beads on the string were assorted.
In Virginia the Indians had a practice
of varying the arrangement on the
strings by slipping on here and there
a hollow tube two or three inches
long and larger in diameter than the
beads. In fact in later times there
were almost endless varieties of ar-
rangement among different tribes,
but generally such wampum as was
primarily intended for commercial
rather than ornamental use was ar-
ranged regularly by color so that
values could be the more easily com-
puted.

As has already been indicated the
main function which wampum served
was as a medium of exchange and
as a visible token of wealth. The
Indians went on the theory that any
one fortunate enough to possess any
considerable amount would miss no
opportunity to make a show of it, for
the Indian was naturally ostentatious.

INDIAN MONEY

751

Although any one was entirely free
to manufacture for himself as much
wampum as he pleased, the difficulties
of the process seem to have prevented
men from thus becoming rich by their
own handiwork. The rich men were
those who accumulated wampum
through trade and war, so that gener-
ally the possession of an unusual
quantity of it betokened some real
ability or bravery.

With the dark and white beads the
Indians made bracelets, necklaces,
belts, girdles, coronets, garters and
pendants. Men, women and children
alike used these things for adorn-
ment, and there was no sort of finery
in which they took more delight or
pride. In Wood's "New England
Prospect," written in 1634, we read:

"A Sagamore with a humbird in his ear
for a pendant, a black eagle in his occiput
for a plume, a good store of warnpum-
peag begirting his loins, his bow in his
hand, his quiver at his back, with six
naked spatterlashes at his heels for his
guard, thinks he is one with King
Charles."

The belt was far from being the
least considerable part of the outfit.

Wampum was worn as ornaments
in the hair and on all parts of the
dress. War clubs were decorated
with it, and two such were sent
on one occasion by the Narragan-
setts to King Charles II as a pres-
ent. It was treasured up by the chiefs
exactly as are crown jewels by
the monarchs of civilized states.
When treaties were negotiated,
when pledges were made, when
alliances were formed, when mar-
riages were solemnized, and when
guests were being received, the
giving of pieces of wampum added
dignity and authority to the transac-

tion. "This belt preserves my
words," was a common form among
the Iroquois when promises of any
sort were being made. It was hung
dangling alike before the eyes of the
new-born babe and of the expiring
veteran ; and even in death it still
had its place, being buried in strings
and belts with the warrior who, it
was supposed, would have use for it
in the future world. In many cases,
however, the spirits of the deceased
were afterwards ruthlessly deprived
of this source of comfort. For when
trade with the colonists had placed a
new value upon wampum, greedy
savages frequently opened the ances •
tral tombs and took therefrom the
long-buried beads with which to pur-
chase firearms or duffel-cloth or
rum. Perhaps they thought that
since the occupants of the graves had
left their money so long unused they
were not likely to stand in need of it
at all.

It was used by the Indians also as
a' means of payment for service in
war. Mr. Edward Eggleston has
told us the story of how on one oc-
casion King Philip in dire extremity
cut up his costly coat, resplendent
with strings of wampum, and distrib-
uted it in subsidies to his wavering-
allies. The sachems used it to rein-
force their commands. "My wars
keep me bare," declared Canonicusv
when he wished it to be understood
that he paid his soldiers, even as "Mr.
Governor" Bradford did.

One other very important use must
be mentioned: it in a large measure
took the place of writing as a means
of preserving records. When, for
example, treaties were made, belts of
wampum were exchanged, and these

75.

INDIAN MONEY

were kept as memorials of the trans-
action. The great Iroquois Confeder-
acy had no records whatever except
in the form of mnemonic beads.
These were kept by a sachem, aided
by two assistants. The same custom
was general in all southern New
England.

"To preserve the beads," says Mr.
Weeden, "was a solemn office, and in
important councils the wampum keepers
walked through the serried ranks of
councillors reading from the belts the
facts suggested to their memory. . . .
A mystic power animated the beads, thus
quickened by the acts and deeds of this
simple but intense savage life. The sum-
mons to war was in red or black, while
peace messages were woven in purer
white. When a communication excited
anger, men kicked the belt about in con-
tempt, and a black belt accompanied
words of condolence, becoming a sad
token of mourning and sympathy."

A strand of wampum consisting of
purple and white shell beads, or a
belt woven with figures formed by
beads of different colors, operated on
the principle of associating a particu-
lar fact with a particular string or
figure; thus giving a serial arrange-
ment to the facts as well as fidelity
to the memory.

By the opening of the seventeenth
century all the tribes bordering on
Long Island Sound — Wampanoags,
Narragansetts, Pequots, Mohicans —
used wampum regularly in their trade
with the peoples of the interior. This
medium of commerce brought wealth
to all the shore tribes, especially the
Narragansetts; and since it was with
these tribes that the English were
first to come in contact the fact was
of no little importance in the estab-
lishment of early trade relations.
North from Cape Cod the shellfish

seem to have been less abundant and,
whether solely from lack of material
or for other reasons now unknown,
the use of wampum as money did not
exist among the Indians of the
northern regions until the settlers at
Plymouth introduced it through the
channel of the fur trade.

The unit of measure was originally
the cubit, i. c, the distance from the
base of the little finger to the elbow.
It seems reasonable to suppose that
this unit was employed because of
the ease of measuring off a string of
beads by catching it in the first
knuckle of the little finger, running
it down the forearm to the elbow, and
repeating the process until the entire
length had been covered. It was
open, however, to the objection that
forearms differ in length. The Dutch
traders at New Amsterdam com-
plained that the natives employed the
tallest and longest-armed among
them when wampum was to be re-
ceived, but those of the least brachial
capacity when it was to be given.
About the time of the English settle-
ment in Massachusetts, however, the
cubit was giving way to the fathom
as a unit; and the fathom became
what the cubit can hardly be said
to have been, a unit of value as well
as of measure. The process of tran-
sition was quite similar to that by
which the English pound was gradu-
ally shifted from a basis of weight
to one of value. We have no record
of any transaction between the
English colonists and the natives in
which wampum was estimated by the
cubit. It is always by the fathom,
yet even the fathom of wampum fluc-
tuated considerably in length. Gen-
erally it was regarded as represent-

INDIAN MONEY

753

ing a value of sixty pence and the
number of beads composing it would
be determined by the number agreed
upon as equivalent to a penny: in
earlier times three black beads or six
white ones. Thus a fathom of white
beads would be worth about two
dollars and a half, a fathom of black
about five. As the quantity in cir-
culation increased, the value of it de-
preciated and from time to time the
number of beads per penny was
augmented.

Colonization invariably gives rise
to peculiar and unexpected condi-
tions. Customs, laws and institu-
tions of long standing in the mother
country are often completely dis-
credited by a few decades of experi-
ence in a new one. This was pre-
eminently true of the seventeenth
century colonization of America.
Geographical knowledge was then so
scant, colonial enterprise so largely
experimental, and governmental pur-
poses and provisions so uniformly
inadequate, that the colonies on the
Atlantic seaboard had perforce to
work out methods and practices in
everyday life which were very far
from being contemplated by those
who patronized and guided their es-
tablishment. One of the most seri-
ous problems along this line was that
of finance — not so much from the
side of taxation as from that of main-
taining a currency. A variety of con-
ditions conspired to increase the diffi-
culty, among which may be men-
tioned the remoteness from the home
country and the consequent lack of
free and speedy communication, the
scarcity of money resulting from this
semi-isolation, the proximity of

peoples using different systems of
currency, and the constant necessity
of keeping up a trade with them.
The outcome in every case among
the northern colonies, whether
English, French, or Dutch, was the
enforced adoption of the native cur-
rency in lieu of the European cir-
culating medium which remained lor
so long a time almost unknown on
this side of the Atlantic.

The first Europeans to employ
wampum in their trade were the
Dutch. Like the English and the
Indians, they also had a variety of
names for it, such as "seawant," "ze-
wand" and "zeband." They found
it in use as currency among the Dela-
wares, Iroquois, and other tribes with
whom they traded, and speedily
adopted it for themselves. Within
a few years after the settlement at
New Amsterdam it could be truly
said that the shell heaps of Long Is-
land were the "mines of New Neth-
erlands and in local traffic scarcely
any other sort of currency was
known.

The earliest English colony in New
England was less commercial in spirit
than New Amsterdam, and trade with
the natives was developed less
rapidly. For several years the com-
merce between the inhabitants of
Plymouth and the neighboring Warn-
panoags and Narragansetts was en-
tirely in the form of barter, that is,
the simple exchange of one com-
modity for another. In return for
food supplies the colonists gave coats,
guns, bullets and such other articles
as they possessed and the natives
desired. On one occasion a tract of
land was sold to the colonists for a
number of hoes. Trade was on a

754

INDIAN MONEY

very small scale, there being yet no
thoughts of acquiring articles from
the natives for export to Europe.

In 1627 De Rasieres, in command
of a Dutch trading vessel, brought
£50 worth of wampum from New
Amsterdam to Plymouth. This was
the first Indian money acquired by
the English settlers. It was used in
trade among the Indians of the Ken-
nebec region and was found so prof-
itable a means of exchange that
thereafter the thrifty Plymouth yeo-
men lost no opportunity to increase
their stock of it. Inasmuch as for
several decades they enjoyed a prac-
tical monopoly of the trade on the
Kennebec, they never found difficulty
in disposing of the wampum which
they received from the natives nearer
home.

It is a principle of finance that an
entirely adequate currency must have
both a value in use and a value in ex-
change. That is, the currency, of
whatever sort it is, must be deemed
of value or represent value of and in
itself, and moreover it must possess
the quality of being generally desir-
able among men. It must carry with
it a distinct purchasing power inde-
pendent of any particular sort of
transaction. Until about the middle
of the seventeenth century both these
requirements were met by wampum.
The exchangeable quality of this
form of currency was due almost
wholly to the extensiveness of the
trade in furs, and especially in beaver.
To the English settler strings and
belts of beads possessed no intrinsic
value. They were altogether lack-
ing in that symbolism which rendered
them precious to the Indian wholly
aside from their monetary value.

But as long as the Englishman
could exchange them in the inland
regions for furs which met a ready
market in Europe he was just as will-
ing to employ this medium as any
other. During the earlier part of
the seventeenth century the supply of
beaver never equalled the demand;
and as one writer has put it, wampum
was the magnet which drew the
beaver out of the interior forests —
the talisman which kept up the equi-
librium of trade between two peoples
who otherwise had really very little
in common.

So far as the colonists were con-
cerned wampum was always an arti-
ficial currency. It could not be used
at all outside of the country. In
Europe the beads would have pos-
sessed only the value of curiosities.
But happily the colonists had fur as
a commodity with which to approach
the European markets, and as long
as the demand continued brisk they
had no reason to regret that the shell
money with which they dealt locally
would not pass in the old world.
Otherwise, of course, it would not
have been possible to make such ex-
tensive use of it. But for the fur
trade they must have been restricted
almost entirely to barter in their deal-
ings with the Indians and to an ex-
change of goods for native products
which could be of immediate use only
to themselves. They might, too,
have been forced earlier than they
finally were to the expedient of coin-
ing money of their own for domestic
trade.

The early settlers of New England
were possessed of but a very limited
amount of the money of the realm,
and such as they had was soon drawn

INDIAN MONEY

755

back to the mother country in ex-
change for commodities. Repeated
legislation designed to prevent the
exporting of coin failed absolutely.
An early example of such legislation
was the following ordinance of the
Massachusetts Court of Assistants,
March 6, 1632:

"It is ordered, that noe planter within
the lymit.ts of this jurisdiccon returneing
for England, shall carry either money or
beav1* with him wthout leave from the
Gouvr, (for the time being) under paine
of forfectinge the money or beav1' soe
intended to be transported."

Prior to 1650 the colonists sold but
an insignificant quantity of produce
in England, and for even that they did
not receive coin, but rather such
goods as they deemed themselves to
be most in need of. It was not long,
therefore, before they found them-
selves quite bereft of anything in the
way of currency which they could use
in their European trade, always ex-
cepting, of course, the beaver skins
which were for several decades quite
as good as money. The scarcity of
coin threw the early colonists back
upon two resources for transactions
among themselves — the use of wam-
pum and barter, or in case of taxes,
payment in various sorts of produce.

These conditions were by no means
new to the colonists, for in the
mother country money was so scarce
as hardly to be had at all by the
common folk, and trade usually meant
merely the exchange of commodities.
There were certain things, like corn,
meat and fish, which had a very
decided value in the early settlements,
and trade by means of them was sub-
ject at first to far less inconvenience
than in the later and more complex
civilization of the eighteenth century.

Just as in England so in New Eng-
land rentals were frequently paid with
a fat wether, or a hog, or a few bushels
of apples. In 1631 corn was made
a legal tender for all debts in the Mas-
sachusetts Bay Colony unless pay-
ment in money or in beaver had been
stipulated in the contract. Musket
balls at a farthing each were also
made legal tender to the amount of
a shilling.

From the early days of the colonies
taxes might be paid in corn, pork,
beef, hides, leather, cheese, tallow,
beeswax, grain, dried fish, whalebone,
live stock and lumber. This anoma-
lous state of affairs led eventually to
such peculiar systems as that under
which the rates of Springfield in 1693
were collected in peas and those of
Hingham in 1687 m milk pails. Of
course the receiving of taxes in
"country pay," as it was called, was
open to serious objections, but colo-
nial conditions did not admit of the
establishing of such a system as
the theorizers might consider ideal.
.When the rates were thus paid the
authorities had to sell the produce if
they could and discharge the obliga-
tions of the colony with the receipts,
or failing this, they had to ask those
whom the colony owed to accept hogs
or maize or dried fish. Thus salaries
of the public officers were often met
with such commodities, even as in
Virginia they were with tobacco. In
at least one important respect the
latter state was better off than New
England, for she had one product
which completely overshadowed all
others, so that everybody of conse-
quence had tobacco with which to
trade, while in New England there
was no single commodity which could

756

INDIAN MONEY

dominate and unify trading opera-
tions. The fur trade of New England
was controlled by a few of the more
enterprising settlers, and while one
man had corn and no cattle another
had cattle but no fish, and another
fish but no beaver. Payment had
therefore to be made in any one of
a score of commodities.

Under this system the public treas-
ury was a constant loser. The cattle
might die, the grain rot, the meat
spoil, even the milk pails might fall
to pieces in the delay caused by the
necessity of trying to find a market.
If a market had been available the
state would have been able to require
taxes in money at first hand from
the ratepayers, so that payment in
kind was in itself an evidence that
money could not easily be had for
the products. Says an early writer:

"From the moment the taxpayer un-
loaded his 'specie' upon the constable until
the treasurer actually had in his hand the
money ultimately realized from the sale
of it, there was nothing but a succession
of deteriorations and losses."

In case of the forced payment of a
debt under this system the value of
the property to be taken in payment
was generally estimated by a 'com-
mission of three — one chosen by the
debtor, one by the creditor, and the
third by the marshal.

The colonists never came to regard
wampum as anything more than a
convenience for the prosecution of
trade with the Indians. Neverthe-
less they were forced sometimes to
use it in their dealings with each
other and even in the payment of
their taxes. But when so employed
it was not regarded as any form of
money, but, as the Rhode Island
Colonial Records for 1662 say:

"It is but a commodity, and it is
unreasonable that it should be forced
upon any man."

The large measure in which the
colonists found themselves under the
necessity of using it as money, though
still protesting that it was not money,
gives conclusive evidence of^the utter
impossibility of a people of any ad-
vancement to live by mere barter.
Even the Indians had passed that
stage. Barter being inadequate, and
coin being almost unknown, the
colonists inevitably drew into use
among themselves the medium of ex^
change which they had originally re-
garded as fit only to win beaver and
food from the natives.

The anomalous conditions which
prevailed in colonial finance rendered
it a thankless task to keep the value
of wampum in any fixed relation
to European currency standards.
Nevertheless the courts of assistants
and general courts and legislative
bodies of the various colonies made
repeated and on the whole creditable
attempts of the sort. The important
part that it played in the life of the
colonies is shown by the large amount
of legislation upon the subject, some
examples of which, drawn chiefly
from the records of Massachusetts, are
of interest. More wampum was used
by the inhabitants of Massachusetts
than all the other New England colo-
nies combined. In 1637 the Court
of Assistants ordered that it should
pass at six a penny for any sum under
twelve pence. That is, six beads (of
the white variety) were worth a penny
and as many as seventy-two might
be offered at one time as legal tender
in the payment of debts. In October,
1640, the same body ordered, that
white wampumpege should pass at

INDIAN MONEY

757

four a penny and "bleue" at two a
penny. The limit was still to 'be
twelve pence unless the creditor was
willing to take more. There is some
doubt concerning the character of the
blue beads, but they were evidently
considered at this time, like the black,
twice as valuable as the white. In-
deed it may well be that black is
really meant by the old chronicler's
"bleue."

Thus far wampum was a legal
tender in the payment of only very
small debts. In June, 1641, the
Court greatly enlarged the financial
field of the Indian currency by order-
ing that it should

"passe currant at 6 a peny for any snme
under 10/. for debts heareafter to bee
made."

It will be noticed that the ratio of
white beads to English pence was re-
stored to six to one. But their value
fluctuated greatly and this ratio was
changed over and over again in sub-
sequent times. The most perplex-
ing phase of this was that it was not
uniform in all the colonies. For ex-
ample, in 1637, when the Massachu
setts Court was declaring six white
beads to be worth a penny, Connecti-
cut was receiving them for taxes at
the rate of four a penny. Between
that time and 1640 Connecticut tried
to bring her system into conformity
with that of Massachusetts, and when,
in the latter year, she adopted the rate
of four a penny, Connecticut has-
tened to enact that "the late order
concerning Wampu at sixe a penny
shall be dissolved, and the former of
fower a penny and two pence to be
paid in the shilling shall be estab-
lished." But hardly was this done
before Massachusetts returned to the

rate of six a penny, and Connecticut
abandoned the effort to keep up with
her changes. The difficulties of
trade between colonies were greatly
enhanced by such failures to har-
monize values — failures rendered
quite inevitable by the nature of the
currency and the rapid fluctuations
in the quantity in circulation.

The Massachusetts law of 1641
making wampum legal tender for
debts of as much as £10 was re-
pealed in 1643. Owing to a blank
left in the records we cannot tell the
amount substituted for the £10, but
we know that it was at least some-
what smaller. The change was prob-
ably prompted by the avidity with
which unscrupulous traders forced
large quantities as payment in trade
when circumstances warranted the
use of a more substantial currency.

The use of wampum in the north-
ern colonies was at its height
about T640. At that time, despite
the suspicions and the reluctance
of acceptance of many, it was
by far the nearest approach to
a universal currency that the colo-
nists had. It could be exchanged
for merchandise, used in the pay-
ment of labor and court judg-
ments, and given to the state in the
discharge of taxes. Bequests were
made in terms of it. An old English
shilling found in a roadway at Flush-
ing, Long Island, in 1647, was re~
garded locally as a great curiosity.
Many of the younger generation had
never seen such a coin.

But wampum currency in New
England was soon to enter upon a
long and steady decline. The first
actual break with it came in 1643,
when the Massachusetts General

758

INDIAN MONEY

Court forbade the receipt of it in the
payment of taxes. The order seems
not to have been obeyed at the time,
but it was a straw showing which way
the wind blew. Roger Williams tells
us that at this time Indian money
which had been valued at nine or
ten shillings a fathom was worth
barely five. There were many cir-
cumstances which conspired to de-
preciate it and eventually strip it of
its character as currency. First may
be mentioned the very familiar pro-
cess known to students of finance as
inflation. The quantity in circula-
tion had increased so much by reason
of the trade in beaver that when,
about the middle of the century,
the demand for the latter in Europe
diminished, there was no other to
take its place in keeping the wampum
afloat. Moreover the thrifty Dutch
at Hackensack and Albany introduced
lathes in the manufacture of the
beads, so that much greater quanti-
ties of it could be produced. The ef-
fects of this were of course to bring
great profits temporarily to the
Dutchmen, but ultimately to render
wampum too common to maintain its
value.

Another cause for the decline of
wampum was the decrease of trade
with the Indians. While between the
years 1630 and 1640 the trade of the
New England colonies was very
largely with the natives, by 1650 it
had come to be in a much greater
measure with the other English colo-
nies and with England. Simultane-
ously with the decline in the traffic in
beaver the Indians were gradually
crowded westward, where such trade
as they continued to maintain was
usurped by the French, and while the

settlers on the frontier continued to
barter with the red men, especially
the Iroquois, the Indian trade came
to mean almost nothing in the com-
mercial towns on the coast. As trade
relations became more far reaching
and complex, the use of wampum
grew more and more impracticable.
The shell money had never acquired
any standing outside of America, and
even in the southern colonies it was
accepted only under extraordinary
conditions. It would not buy sugar
and rum in the West Indies, tobacco
and fruits in Virginia, rice and in-
digo in the Carolinas, manufactured
goods in England, or gold or silver
anywhere for the establishing of a
better currency.

Still another reason for the degra-
dation of wampum was the wide-
spread practice of counterfeiting.
The distinctive marks of the beads
were so few that it was always an
easy matter for a creditor to allege
that the wampum paid him was
counterfeit and compel the debtor,
however unjustly, to make another
payment. Much trouble was experi-
enced also by reason of the circula-
tion of faulty beads, whose value was
questionable on account of breakage
and discoloration. The Indian, being
"to the manner born," was generally
able to detect such much more readily
than the whites, the result being that
the faulty wampum was kept mainly
in the hands of the colonists. The
Indian palmed it off on the undiscern-
ing Englishman, and the latter found
it quite impossible to get rid of it,
except by in turn beguiling some of
his neighbors.

In October, 1648, we find the Mas-
sachusetts Court of Assistants pass-

INDIAN MONEY

759

ing the fallowing order relative to
the integrity and exchange values of
wampum :

"It is voted, for tryall nntill the next
Corte, that all passable or payable peage
henceforth shall be intire, wthout breaches,
both the black & white, wthout deforming
spots, sutably strung in eight knowne
peels— the peny, 3d, I2d, 5s, in white; the
2d, 6d, 2j^s, & 10s, in black."

The first part of the foregoing or-
dinance represents but one of a great
number of attempts made during this
period to legislate bad wampum out
of circulation. The rapid repetition of
such orders proves their general fail-
ure in practice. The latter part of
the order just quoted established a
definite system of "small change,"
which was adopted entire by Con-
necticut the following year. The
Connecticut order provided that the
wampum be

"strunge, and in some measure strunge
sutably, and not small and great, on-
comely and disorderly mixt, as formerly
it hath been."

But the use of wampum in the dis-
charge of public obligations was be-
ing all the time discredited. On the
second of May, 1649, the Massachu-
setts Court of Assistants passed the
following:

"It is ordered, that it shall not be in
the liberty of any towne or person to pay
peage to the country rate, nor shall the
Treasurer accept thereof, from time to
time."

Wampum was still to "remayne
passable," however, "from man to
man." In 1650 it was voted by the
same Court that the shell money
should pass as legal tender for the
payment of debts to the value of forty
shillings (white at eight a penny, black
at four), but that it should not be re-

ceived by the treasurer in payment of
county rates. In 1661 this ordinance
making it a legal tender for private
transactions was repealed "on obser-
vation of much inconvenience of the
lawe." By this time all the New
England colonies were refusing to re-
ceive it for taxes and were removing
from it the quality of legal tender.

The employment of wampum died
out slowly. Even after it had lost its
value for trade among the colonists
themselves it continued to be used
somewhat in such traffic with the In-
dians as continued to be maintained.
For although Massachusetts began
the coinage of shillings and six-
pences in 1652, and a considerable
amount of coin from the West In-
dies began about that time to be
brought in, such money was too val-
uable to be used where wampum
could yet be made to serve the pur-
pose. Connecticut made a grant of
"50 fathom of Wompom" in 1666.
Rhode Island recognized it officially
as late as 1670. In New York it was
used until after the end of the cen-
tury— as for instance in the payment
of ferriage between New York City
and Brooklyn. It was used in south-
ern Connecticut as late as 1704; and
in the backwoods regions of the
northern and middle colonies well
down into the eighteenth century.
The decline in its use by the colonists
betokened a general change in eco-
nomic conditions. Instead of export-
ing beaver they now sent to Eng-
land the products of their labor —
grain, beef, lumber and other such
commodities. Trade with the In-
dians was relegated to the frontiers-
men and the older settlements took
on a more advanced commercial

760

BELA L. PRATT, SCULPTOR

character, one with which the em-
ployment of wampum was not com-
patible. As the red man was grad-
ually driven back, his money was re-
pudiated, so that he was not allowed
to leave permanently even this small
remembrance in the land that was to
know "him no more.

It would be difficult to estimate the
influence exerted by those little beads
of clam and oyster shell in shaping
the earlier history of the New Eng-
land colonies. In times when the
struggling settlers were quite bereft
of. any more substantial means of ex-
change they found in the currency of
the natives an inestimable boon.
Such a currency could hardly have
been taken over as a permanent adop-

tion by the newcomers, but for half a
century it was of excellent service,
facilitating as it did not merely trade
with the natives but all sorts of finan-
cial transactions by the colonists
among themselves. A system of pure
barter was impossible. The colonists
for several decades had no money of
their own, nor could they get any.
Wampum provided the only prac-
tical solution of the problem. Civili-
zation does not often find a custom
or institution among savages which
it can profitably adopt. But, as in
the present case, it not infrequently
finds itself driven into borrowing a
temporary expedient with which to
maintain itself along its frontier
lines.

The Work

Bela L. Pratt,

Sculptor

Blossom, William Howe Downes Fruition,

Detail from Floral Wealth Detail from Floral Wealth

BELA L. PRATT was born at
Norwich, Connecticut, Dec-
ember ii, 1867. His father
was George Pratt, a lawyer,
and his mother was Sarah Whittlesey
Pratt ; his ancestry was purely Ameri-
can in every branch for over two
hundred years. While he was a
child he began his artistic studies
by drawing and modelling at home.

At the age of sixteen he entered
the Yale School of Fine Arts,
where he studied under Professors
Niemeyer and Weir. In 1887 he en-
tered the Art Students' League of
New York, where his teachers were
Augustus St. Gaudens, F. Edwin
Elwell, William M. Chase and
Kenyon Cox. During the three
years he passed in this school he

Floral Wealth, Blossom, Pan-American Exposition

also had the opportunity of working
for Mr. St. Gaudens in his studio.
In 1890 he went to. Paris and con-
tinued his studies under Chapu and
Falguiere. He entered the Ecole
Nationale des Beaux Arts at the
head of the class the same year.
While in Paris he received three
medals and two prizes. He re-
turned to the United States in 1892 ;
was appointed instructor in model-
ling in the School of the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston, in 1893, and he
still occupies that position. The
list of his works for the past ten
years, 1893 to. 1903, will tell the
story of his professional career up
to date.

I am not inclined to fill in the

foregoing outlines, except to point
out that they represent to the im-
agination a period of arduous and
serious preparation under influences
of the most stimulating and stren-
uous order. All the biographical
facts of an artist's career that
have any legitimate
the public are those
cern his works. Of
history — his descent,
development and education — it is
pertinent to know such particulars
only as may throw some light upon
his ideals, purposes, character and
disposition ; 'but no conclusions
drawn from such data have much
weight unless they are confirmed by
a study of what he has produced.

761

interest for
which con-
his personal
environment,

From a photograph loaned by the Boston Herald

Bela L. Pratt, at Work

762

BELA L. PRATT, SCULPTOR

763

The critical inferences derived from
personal acquaintance with an art-
ist may or may not be sound ; anec-
dotes of his youthful exploits may
or may not aid the reader to arrive
at just ideas regarding his rela-
tive importance in the world of art ;
familiar reminiscences of his say-
ings and doings may or may not
help us to form a just conception of
what he stands for as an artist ; but
there can be no doubt that he must
finally rest his claims on the intrin-
sic aesthetic worth of his works.
"By their fruits ye shall know
them."

, In the decade since 1893 Mr.
Pratt has found time and oppor-
tunity, in addition to his duties as
a teacher, to produce about fifty
sculptural works, including colos-
sal groups, single figures, reliefs,
etc., for public buildings ; monu-
ments, statues and portrait busts ;
portrait reliefs, medals, decorative
tablets ; bronze and marble ideal fig-
ures, and a long list of minor com-
missions. Ten years is not a long-
time in a busy life, and few Ameri-
can sculptors have more or better
concrete results to show for this pe-
riod. The exhibition of Mr. Pratt's
sculptures held last December at
the St. Botolph Club galleries was
the first opportunity to sum it all
up, and it was astonishing to observe
the continuous power of production,
the fertility of invention, and the
high plane of plastic imagination
and sentiment, which, in response to
the varied and important demands
made* upon the artist, could have
brought forth such an impressive and
delightful collection of work.

The earliest of Mr. Pratt's public

commissions was that for the two
colossal groups on the Water Gate
of the great Peristyle at the World's
Columbian Exposition of 1893 at
Chicago. Our American rebirth in

fg:;<-:

s.ry-KS^iy-

Figure for St. Paul's School, Concord,

n. h., to be erected in honor of the

120 Graduates who Fought in the

Spanish-American War

sculpture dates from that very re-
cent time, and I still cherish the
memory of the vast and noble Court
of Honor as one of the loveliest
landmarks of artistic exaltation in
my experience. Who that saw it
does not? Where, outside of our
dreams of the golden age of Greece,
did the sunlight ever bathe white

764

BELA L. PRATT, SCULPTOR

Study of a Young Girl

colonnades, terraces, domes, basins,
fountains, porticos and pediments
with a sweeter, softer, more majes-
tic glamour? How it comes back, —
that first indescribable and unfor-
gettable moment in the Court of
Honor !

To have had a part in the making
of that monumental composition
was an honor for the artist and an
auspicious beginning of a busy pro-
fessional life. That the opportunity
was well employed is evident from
the stream of commissions which
since 1893 has set in Mr. Pratt's di-
rection, more particularly for archi-
tectural and decorative sculptures,
which constitute the greater part of
his work. Indeed, it became ob-
vious at once that his talent for
large decorative figures, both in the
round and in relief, was exceptional,
and it is to the prompt recognition
of it on the part of architects that
he has owed most of his subsequent
opportunities to distinguish himself.

But, fortunately, along with the de-
mand for this important class of
work, there was also a sufficient
realization of the artist's capabili-
ties in the realm of smaller and
more intimate statuary on a scale
suited to indoor purposes, so that
he was enabled to cultivate his ver-
satility and maintain a desirable ar-
tistic balance between the extremes
of large and small. One of his most
charming productions in low relief
portraiture dates from 1893 — the
medallion of the daughters of Dr.
Frederick C. Shattuck. In this kind
of relief work the artist could mani-
fest the fine and subtile sentiment
for the graceful, sweet movement of
lines, and the delicate play of light
and shadow, which distinguish so
many of the bas-reliefs of the Ital-
ian Renaissance, and at the same

The Reflection in the Pool
Study for a Fountain

BELA L. PRATT, SCULPTOR

765

time successfully illustrate those at-
tractive personal traits in childhood
which (owing to their naturalness
and absence of self-consciousness)
are in all the graphic arts such con-
genial themes for portraiture. For
this charming sort of family por-
traiture several of the American
sculptors of the present day, nota-
bly Augustus St. Gaudens, have
shown a special talent.

In 1894 Mr. Pratt made a life-size
figure of "Our Lady of Sorrows"
for a shrine at Auriesville, New
York ; two low relief portrait groups
similar to that of the Shattuck chil-
dren— those of Mrs. F. C. Shattuck
and her daughter, and of the chil-
dren of William Slater — and the
medal presented by the alumni of
Harvard University to President
Eliot. Of the relief portraits there
is little to say beyond what has been
said already. Their delicacy and
charm are in no wise tainted by ex-
cessive sentiment; for Mr. Pratt's
instinct for reserve and sobriety
seems everywhere true and thor-
oughgoing; and his sweetness is
the genuine and natural sweetness
of the fifteenth century workmen,
or else that which fairly takes the
place of it with us of a more sophis-
ticated age, namely, a sacred re-
spect for good work.

The Eliot medal was the first
work of that class done by Mr.
Pratt. Its most interesting part is
the portrait of President Eliot,
which is, in my opinion, one of the
most satisfactory counterfeit pre-
sentments of this great man ever
made. It has an air of almost
classic serenity and poise, and ad-
mirablv conforms to all that we

■

know of the individual. In the de-
sign of the medal we note the art-
ist's intuitive balance, rhythm and

SHBH

««««*?;

ft; A a ■..

effective disposition of spaces, re-
sulting in an impression of com-
pleteness and reposefulness. The
placing and lettering of the Latin
inscription and the subsidiary sym-

766

BELA L. PRATT, SCULPTOR

Col. Henry Lee, for Harvard University

bolic ornament which enters into
the design contribute as they should
to this impression, and are organi-
cally related. This is easily one of
the most artistic medals from the
hand of an American artist. It is.
good all the way through, and none
of the problems of this interesting
and difficult art have been shirked
or evaded.

In the year 1895 we find Mr. Pratt
mainly occupied in the production
of important commissions for the
great building of the Library of
Congress at Washington. His are
the six seven-foot spandrel figures
above the main entrance, and the
colossal figure (twelve feet high)
typifying Philosophy, which stands
in the rotunda. The motives given
him for the six spandrel figures
were Sculpture, Painting, Litera-
ture, Science, etc. The sculptor who
approaches this task at once finds
himself confronted by inflexible
limitations as to design, imposed by

the space to be filled and the con-
structional function of the arch on
which it rests ; we can therefore ex-
pect conformity to conditions and a
qualified abnegation of originality as
the prime qualities. But it is not,
even bearing in mind these apparent
handicaps, obligatory to wholly
sink one's personality in conform-
ing, since obedience to architectural
law involves no real sacrifice of the
plastic impulse. It is in meeting
such exigencies that the artist dis-
plays the ingenuity and resourceful-
ness which might never be called
out by freer opportunities ; he
stoops to conquer ; and by indefati-
gable experiment learns for himself,
what every predecessor has had to
learn, just what bend of the arm
means success in a spandrel, by re-
inforcing, supporting and carrying
out the architectonic principle, ad-
justing his forms by a natural ne-

The Puritan, at Groton, Connecticut

Bust of Phillips Brooks, for the Brooks House, Cambridge

cessity to the space and surface al-
lotted to him.

The work for the Library of Con-
gress was continued in 1896, when
Mr. Pratt modelled the series of
four large high-relief medallions,
Spring, Summer, Autumn and' Win-
ter, for the pavilion. These reliefs
are full of spirit, refinement and true
decorative character. The same
year gave 'birth to the bronze Vic-

tory for the United States battleship
Massachusetts, the first decoration of
the kind to be so placed, a portrait
bust of Mr. Coffin, and a bust of Mr.
Burnett for St. Mark's School, South-
borough, Massachusetts. In 1897 the
recumbent figure in marble of Dr. Coit,
for the chapel of St. Paul's School,
Concord, New Hampshire, was made.
This work was given an honorable
mention at the Paris Salon of 1897.

767

768

BELA L. PRATT, SCULPTOR

Decorative Figure, Liberal Arts Building,
Pan-American Exposition

"Orpheus Mourning Eurydice"
was exhibited first in 1898 at the
Paris Salon. This is a life-size fig-
ure in plaster, somewhat reminis-
cent of the Ecole des Beaux Arts.
Anatomically it manifests a firm
grasp of fact and a good degree of
skill in its expression ; but in its
conception it probably represents
the mind of M. Falguiere more
closely than that of Mr. Pratt. It
certainly has not the measure of

reserve which characterizes the
American's work usually, and which,
I think, is an instinctive expression
of his own feeling for sobriety. The
position of the head, the expression
of the face, and the gesture of the
right arm are somewhat strained,
and the whole air of the figure is not
only French but a little bit rococo, —
a note which is quite alien to Mr.
Pratt's own temperament. As a
matter of fact it was made under the
eyes of M. Falguiere, and may be
dismissed as an academic study of
the nude. It would look highly pic-
turesque in a garden, with a back-
ground of shrubbery.

In 1899 Mr. Pratt made the
Brown memorial tablet for Cornell
University and the bronze portrait
bust of Bishop Brooks for Brooks
House, Harvard University. The

Orpheus Mourning Eurydice

BELA L. PRATT, SCULPTOR

769

bust of Phillips Brooks will stand
as the best representation of his
massive and unique personality. In
1900 Mr. Pratt produced a portrait
bust of Dr. Shattuck for St. Paul's
School, Concord, New Hampshire ;
the Avery memorial bust for Gro-
ton, Connecticut ; a bronze group
for the United States battleship
Kearsarge, a decorative tablet for the
United States battleship Alabama,
and the marble study of a young
girl now in the possession of Mrs.
F. C. Shattuck. The last-named
work was exhibited at the Pan-
American Exposition, Buffalo, New
York, where it was awarded a sec-
ond medal. This statuette, modelled
with an admirable understanding
and appreciation of the grace, vitali-
ty and naturalness of the youthful
form, is a lovely vision of youth and

Decorative Group, Liberal Arts Building,
Pan-American Exposition

Winged Figure for Liberal Arts Building,
Pan-American Exposition

life. Accurate and veracious, strong
and delicate, it is neither academic
nor insipid, but has a marked indi-
viduality and a human quality of
sensibility. The subtilty, firmness
and flexibility of the modelling are
altogether exceptional, and give evi-
dence of a robust and mature talent.
The last two years have been of
great fertility, and have witnessed
the birth of the Yale bi-centennial
medal in bronze, two groups for the
Pan-American Exposition at Buffa-
lo, a group and three single figures
for the Manufactures and Liberal
Arts Building at the Pan-American
Exposition, another marble study of
a young girl, the portrait bust of
John E. Hudson, late president of
the Bell Telephone Company; the
relief portrait of Samuel Eliot for
St. Paul's School, Concord, New

Tablet on the Forward Turret of the U. S. Battleship "Kearsarge"

Hampshire ; the marble portrait bust
of Colonel Henry Lee for Harvard
University; the Butler monument
for Lowell, Massachusetts ; the re-
lief portrait of the daughters of
Herbert Sears; the medallion of
John C. Ropes for Trinity Church,
Boston ; the relief of John C. Ropes
for Memorial Hall, Cambridge; the
Hemenway tablet for Wilmington,
North Carolina, and the heroic fig-
ure of a soldier for St. Paul's School,
Concord, New Hampshire, to be
erected in honor of the one hundred
and twenty St. Paul's boys who
fought in the Spanish-American
War.

The ideal figure of an American
soldier just mentioned is one of the
most interesting, virile and serious
of Mr. Pratt's larger works. It is a
composite type of the manly, ath-
770

letic, adventurous young soldier,
precisely such a type of the Ameri-
can volunteer as might be supposed
to come from the universities and
higher schools of the country in re-
sponse to the call of the nation in
war time. The khaki uniform, sword,
leggings, gloves and hat proclaim
him an officer; and the pose indi-
cates that he is not in active service,
but, it may be, has just returned to
the scene of his academic career
after the close of hostilities. The
figure stands well and firmly, at
ease, and suggests rather the free
individual initiative of the modern
American soldier than the military
rigidity and punctilio in bearing of
the older school. The head is emi-
nently handsome and thoroughly
American ; the expression of earnest
and steady purpose is noble. There

BELA L. PRATT, SCULPTOR

771

is no trace of bravado, no mere mili-
tary vanity, but a resolute, modest
and businesslike air, as of one who
appreciates the responsibilities and
dangers of the service, meets them
with, a stout heart, and is ani-
mated by an unchangeable and
lofty patriotism. Happy the coun-
try which can count upon the loy-
alty and devotion of such valiant
and true-hearted sons. This is the
thought that comes to mind as
we look at this alert, boyish
form.

How infinitely superior are monu-
ments of this calibre to the count-

less mediocrities that do duty in the
guise of soldiers' memorials in near-
ly every city and town of the land.
How much better it would have
been to wait until a generation of
artists should arise to fitly com-
memorate the great deeds of their
fathers. The time must come when
it will be universally realized that it
is doing scanty honor to brave men
to erect paltry and pitiable monu-
ments to them, but that the quality
of the art in the memorial must
match the quality of the heroism to
which it is a testimony and of which
it is a symbol.

Recumbent Figure of Dr. Coit, Chapel of St. Paul's School, Concord

The Lost State of Franklin

By Will M. Clemens

UNDER the shadow of the
Great Smoky Mountains,
in that section of the South
lying between Knoxville,
Tennessee and Asheville, North
Carolina, there once existed the
State of Franklin, now lost alike to
history and romance. All that re-
mains, in name at least, to remind
one of the vanished commonwealth
is the narrow, crooked-lined county
of Sevier, in Eastern Tennessee.

The lost State of Franklin once
formed, in area and population, an
important part of the United States.
It had its executive, legislative and
judicial departments, exercised gov-
ernmental functions, maintained a
respectable militia, flourished apace,
and then, after a varied experience,
completely disappeared from the
"sisterhood of States." From his-
torians the State of Franklin has re-
ceived scant attention, and to the ma-
jority of the present generation its
identity with the State of Tennessee
seems almost as mythical as that of
Atlantis with the American conti-
nent.

Briefly the story of Franklin is
this: A few thousand mountaineers,
in a remote wilderness, infused with
the principles which inspired the
Revolution, banded together and
formed a State government of their
own. With John Sevier, an ideal
frontiersman, as the hero, with local
self-government as the animating
772

motive, with a variety of plots and
counter-plots to lend picturesque-
ness of incident, with phases of com-
edy interspersed now and then with
episodes truly tragic, the drama was
acted out amid the scenery fur-
nished by the mountain regions of
Tennessee.

At the outbreak of the American
Revolution, what is now the State ol
Tennessee was an unorganized,
sparsely settled territory. In 1776,
its inhabitants, under the leadership
of Captain John Sevier, petitioned
the North Carolina legislature to
be annexed to that State, in order
to contribute their share toward na-
tional independence. As the ex-
penses of the war bore heavily on
"the old north State," her legisla-
ture was only too glad to divide the
burden. The petition was granted,
and what is now Tennessee formed
part of North Carolina until the
close of the Revolution. , As it had
now become a source of expense
rather than of help, the North Caro-
lina legislature in June, 1784, with-
out consulting those most affected,
ceded to the federal government the
whole annexed territory under the
name of the District of Washing-
ton, provided that the government
should, within two years, signify its
assent.

Then there arose rebellion, the
settlers naturally objecting to such
a wholesale disposition of them-

THE LOST STATE OF FRANKLIN

773

selves. The manner and conditions
of the cession were repugnant, and
the people felt that they had not
only been trifled with, but subjected
to two years of anarchy and disor-
der. Calling a convention in August,
1784, they formed the State of
Franklin. The North Carolina leg-
islature, realizing its error, hastened
to undo its mistake and reannexed
the '/Washington district." The in-
habitants of Franklin rejected of-
fers for reconciliation, and Captain
Sevier, though at first inclined to
advise a return of allegiance ti
North Carolina, yielded to an over-
whelming public sentiment and ac-
cepted the governorship of the new
State. He was inaugurated at Wa-
tauga, March 1, 1785. Some sort of
order was now established, at least
for a time. A court was created, the
militia was thoroughly reorganized
and peace was effected with the In-
dians who had been carrying on a
destructive warfare for a quarter of
a century. Complications, however,
arose which kept the young State of
Franklin in a constant turmoil.
Congress still asserted jurisdiction.
A reaction, stimulated by disap-
pointed office-seekers, ensued among
those who had been most clamorous
for the new State. Jealousy of
Sevier's success animated his rivals,
who henceforth sought to make his
life a burden.

The population was divided into
the Franklin and North Carolina
factions. Elections were held and
appointments made under the laws
of both States. Two sets of offi-
cers claimed authority, each nullify-
ing the acts of the other. One fac-
tion would steal the public records

from the other, only to be treated in
like manner in turn. The courts
were in a chaotic condition. Wills
could not be proved, titles perfected,
nor justice administered. No taxes
were paid. Marriages performed
by officials of one faction were not
recognized by the other.

The determined young State,
nevertheless, fought for its life. It
exercised even federal power, and
authorized the coinage of specie,
though its chief medium of ex-
change continued to be the skins of
wild animals. Finally, emissaries
were sent to the North Carolina leg-
islature to make overtures of peace.
The address of Franklin's represent-
ative was a model of eloquence,
fervid with the rhetoric of the Revo-
lutionary era. But it fell upon un-
heeding ears. No recognition would
be made of the rebellious State,
though North Carolina had once cut
her off without her consent.

The last session of the Franklin
legislature met in September, 1787.
That there was then no intention of
surrendering is evident from one of
the acts of the legislature, which
has been preserved and which is in-
teresting as an example of primitive
financiering. The law is as follows :

"Be it enacted by the General Assembly
of the State of Franklin, and it is hereby
enacted by the authority of the same: That
from the 1st day of January, 1788, the sal-
aries of the officers of this commonwealth
be as follows, to wit:

"His Excellency the Governor, per an-
num, 1,000 deer skins.

"His Honor the chief justice, 500 deer
skins.

"The secretary to his Excellency the
Governor, 500 raccoon skins.

"The treasurer of the state, 450 raccoon
skins.

774

THE LOST STATE OF FRANKLIN

"Each county clerk, 300 beaver skins.

"Clerk of the House of Commons, 200
raccoon skins.

"Member of the Assembly, per diem,
three raccoon skins.

"Justice's fee for signing a warrant, one
muskrat skin.

"To constable, for serving a warrant,
one mink skin.

"Enacted into a law the 18th day of Oc-
tober, 1787, under the great seal of the
state."

In the mean while, Governor Cas-
well, of North Carolina, issued his
proclamation declaring the govern-
ment of Franklin illegal, stigmatiz-
ing its officers and adherents as
rebels, and demanding surrender
and acknowledgment of the author-
ity of North Carolina.

The Franklinites refused, and it
was only when forced by a superior
number of troops that they yielded.
The State ended its short-lived
career with a sort of judicial farce.
Sevier, of course, was arrested and
prosecuted. During the proceed-
ings an ardent Franklinite rushed

into the presence of the court and
dramatically referred to the popular
idol then on trial. In the uproar
that followed Sevier walked out of
the court-room and was not again
molested. Years afterward he was
elected first Governor of Tennessee.

The State of Franklin was oblit-
erated, its territory forming part of
North Carolina once more, until it
was ceded to the federal govern-
ment. On June 1, 1796, it was duly
admitted to the Union.

The State of Tennessee, as it
exists to-day, was therefore first
known as tke State of Franklin,
with John Sevier ars Governor from
1785 to 1788. For one brief year
it was known as "The Territory
South of the Ohio," and then in 1890
was officially designated as "The
Territory of Tennessee," with Wil-
liam Blount, Governor from 1790 to
1796. In the last mentioned year
the State of Tennessee was duly or-
ganized with John Sevier, Governor,
from 1796 to 1 80 1.

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